


Know Thyself

by sevenimpossiblethings



Category: Sherlock (TV)
Genre: AU, Canon Compliant, Case Fic, Established Relationship, Gen, Homeless Network, Homelessness, Implied/Referenced Child Abuse, Kidfic, Kidnapping, M/M, Major Character Injury, Marriage Proposal, Mycroft's Umbrella, POV Multiple, POV Mycroft Holmes, POV Original Character, POV Sherlock Holmes, Post-Season/Series 03, Texting, but really, i guess
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-07-24
Updated: 2014-08-10
Packaged: 2018-02-10 04:41:35
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 4
Words: 44,465
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2011287
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sevenimpossiblethings/pseuds/sevenimpossiblethings
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Sherlock nodded. “Acceptable.” He held out his hand. “Welcome to the Homeless Network, Miss…?”<br/>“My name is Tara,” she said.<br/>“No, it’s not.”<br/>“Tara,” she repeated, and shook her new employer’s hand.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Update 06/15: [reclusedetective](http://reclusedetective.tumblr.com/) made a [cover](http://reclusedetective.tumblr.com/image/121185242371)!

Muriel eyed the man sitting on the park bench, exactly where Jane had said he would be, and three minutes early, at that. 

_“Tall, posh bloke. You can’t miss him – anyway, everyone knows what Sherlock Holmes looks like. Mind you, he doesn’t like to wear the hat.”_

Muriel did know what Sherlock Holmes looked like, so she stepped out from around the hedge and sat down on the other edge of the bench. She didn’t look at him. 

She could feel his eyes flicking toward her, cataloguing ( _“He’ll deduce you, don’t bother trying to hide anything, just let him do it, get the money, and go.”_ ). She sensed him rapidly arrive at the conclusion that she was not a random schoolgirl looking for a place to do her homework. 

“You’re not Jane,” he said, his voice brisk. 

“I’ve still got what you want,” she replied, unzipping her bag and handing him a notebook. 

Sherlock took it and flipped it open, scanning the notes briefly, before ripping out the appropriate pages and handing the notebook back to her. 

“Jane didn’t do the watching. You did,” he said. 

Muriel shrugged. “Problem?” 

She still wasn’t looking at him. Instead, she let her eyes wander over the passers-by. She and Sherlock were seated on opposite ends of the bench. They weren’t angled toward each other, and aside from the exchange of the notebook, they looked as if they were talking to themselves. 

“Your observations are better. Clearer, more nuanced,” the detective announced. 

“I don’t do things halfway,” she replied. 

Now the man turned to her fully. “No, you don’t,” he agreed after a pause.

Muriel thought about the countless articles she’d read that described his cases, his suicide, his “miraculous” return, the unveiling of his best friend’s bride as a criminal mastermind, and the subsequent romance between the detective and said best friend… “Neither do you.” 

Sherlock pulled a note of a satisfactorily large denomination out of his pocket and handed it to her. “If you were smart, you’d make Jane let you keep it all.” 

She met his grey-blue gaze. “I’m plenty smart, thanks.” 

“Smart enough to keep Jane from turning on you if I decided to give you all her jobs?” he countered. 

Muriel repressed a smirk. He might as well have announced straight out that he was impressed. 

“I can’t do the weekday jobs, can I? So she can’t complain that I’m taking everything.” She leaned down and closed her bag. 

Sherlock narrowed his eyes. “Why can’t you take the weekday jobs?” 

“It’s only the end of May, isn’t it?” she said, raising her eyebrows. When that failed to garner a response, she said, “I’ve got school.” 

Sherlock wrinkled his nose in distaste. “School’s boring.” 

“Yes, well,” Muriel said, because he was right, it _was_ boring. “I’ve still got to go.” 

“What a waste,” said Sherlock. “You’re completely independent, and you’re using that independence to do exactly what dependent adolescents are forced to do.” 

Muriel studied him for a moment. “You went to uni. You’ve got a graduate degree. You’re not exactly the poster child for a successful dropout. I’ve another year yet before my GCSEs, even.” She stood up. “And if you think living on the streets makes me independent, you’re an idiot, despite your fancy title. Homelessness is all about dependence, just of a different kind. School is the only chance I’ve got to become independent, someday. If that’s too boring for you, then I’ll tell Jane I can’t cover her in the future.” 

Sherlock stood up, too, an odd half-smile on his face. He dug out another note and offered it to her. She didn’t take it. 

“Just between us,” Sherlock said. “Think of it as a signing bonus.” 

Muriel smiled despite herself and pocketed the note. 

“You’ll take the weekend jobs, then?” he confirmed. 

“Anything outside of school hours,” she said, just because she was pretty sure he didn’t know what those were. When his face went blank, she said, “Let’s say nothing seven a.m. to five p.m. Monday through Friday, through the first week of July.” 

Sherlock nodded. “Acceptable.” He held out his hand. “Welcome to the Homeless Network, Miss…?” 

“My name is Tara,” she said.

“No, it’s not.” 

“Tara,” she repeated, and shook her new employer’s hand. 

“Fine. Tara, then. I’ll text Billy when I’ve got a new job for you,” Sherlock said. 

“Looking forward to it,” Muriel said sincerely. “This was fun.” She grinned, and not simply because she now had enough money to pay Maggie to let her sleep on her sofa _and_ eat for the next week – the job really had been fun. 

Sitting and watching and following without being noticed – it’s what she knew how to do. It’s what she did anyway, how she survived. Wasn’t that what adults always wanted, to be paid for the tasks they were already good at or already did? 

She tried to imagine making the case to a social worker. She didn’t think they’d be amused. 

“It is, isn’t it?” Sherlock said, and left. 

 

She started working for Sherlock a few days a week. Maggie pretended to grumble that the others would think she was playing favourites, but Muriel _paid_ and was quiet and sober and always did her dishes, so the old widow let it be. 

Maggie never asked where Muriel was getting the money from. 

 

When she handed Sherlock the notes from the third job, he passed her a mobile.

“Business only,” he told her. 

She rolled her eyes. “Like there’s anyone else I want to call.” 

“I prefer to text,” Sherlock said. 

“I know.” 

 

When she turned up to an exchange in late June with a black eye, Sherlock narrowed his eyes but said nothing. 

Muriel was glad. She knew how to take care of herself and, even if she didn’t, it was none of his business. 

She couldn’t always go to Maggie’s, and sometimes she didn’t want to, not when she knew Mac or Lee would be there, anyway. Mac was a drinker, and not the mellow kind. Lee didn’t have to be drunk to make a pass at her. 

 

The next week, she showed up with bruises on her wrists, bruises Sherlock couldn’t miss when she handed him the pages with her notes. 

Two in a row was bad, even for her. She could normally go weeks without getting into a fight, without getting on the wrong end of someone looking for blood. 

“You’re useless to me if you’re dead or incapacitated,” Sherlock said sharply. 

“Not planning on either,” she replied. 

 

As soon as school was out, he gave her a bigger job, a more complicated one, one she couldn’t have done while sitting in a classroom all day. 

“I want all your focus on this,” Sherlock said. 

“Done,” she said. 

“Twice weekly check-ins, aside from the usual text protocol. Tuesday nights on the rotating park schedule, Fridays at twelve-thirty, Angelo’s.” He showed her where the restaurant was on a map on his phone. 

Muriel hesitated. 

“I trust Angelo,” Sherlock said. 

She didn’t care about Angelo. That was, she didn’t care about Angelo as long as he didn’t care that she was young and homeless and conducting surveillance for Sherlock Holmes. 

Meeting _inside_ – well, somehow that made the rendezvous feel like a real meeting. Something official, instead of regular, chance encounters in parks across London. 

She didn’t want anything about their odd relationship to shift. She didn’t need an adult trying to _save_ her. 

“Fine,” she said, because despite her concerns, Sherlock was the only one who really _knew_ and still hadn’t tried – so maybe the new location didn’t mean as much to him as it did to her. 

 

Sherlock was seated at a table by a large window when Muriel arrived. The restaurant was nearly empty and the waiter wasn’t paying her any attention, so she crossed the room and slipped into the seat opposite. 

“I’ve already ordered for us,” Sherlock said. “Angelo believes you are the daughter of a friend of mine. You’re interested in chemistry but are unsure about attending university, so your mum has decided it would be beneficial for you to spend time with someone with a degree from Cambridge.” 

Muriel raised one eyebrow. “Are you telling me Angelo is under the impression that you are attempting to be a _good influence_?” 

“Something like that,” Sherlock said. He didn’t grin, but his eyes were dancing. 

He didn’t tell her he knew she’d spent another night at a shelter, one that didn’t ask too many questions about why she was there and where she was planning on going the next day. Probably he just didn’t care. He didn’t tell her that she looked tired or thin – though she knew she was both – and he didn’t scold her when she teased him for the love-bites peaking out from beneath his collar. 

She didn’t know why she had expected him to, when he wasn’t like any other adult she’d ever met. Her observational skills were why he liked her, after all – or, at least why he needed her. She didn’t know that he liked her. 

 

She was on her way to Maggie’s when the pay phone next to her rang. She spared it half a glance but kept walking. She didn’t have time for every oddity that crossed her path. 

Then the next one rang.

And the next. 

_Fuck._

She checked her mobile, wondering if she had somehow missed a text from Sherlock, but there was nothing new. 

She picked up the fourth phone. 

“What do you want?” she asked. 

“Merely a simple conversation, I assure you,” replied a smooth, male voice. 

“About?” 

“Oh, I think you know. You’re a smart girl. He wouldn’t hire you otherwise, would he?” 

_Fuck_ , she thought again. 

She pulled out her mobile a second time – no reception. That was odd.

“Let’s leave this between us for now, shall we?” the caller continued. “There’s a car waiting for you.” 

The car was sleek and black. A driver opened the door for her. She got in. 

“Good evening,” said the man from the phone. He had pale skin and thin ginger hair. He wore an absurdly old-fashioned three-piece suit, and a black umbrella was placed across his lap, though it hadn’t rained in days. 

“’Evening,” Muriel replied. “Who are you?” 

“An interested party.” 

“In Sherlock,” she stated. 

“And, since Sherlock is interested in you…” the man trailed off delicately. 

Muriel waited. 

“Do you plan to continue your association with Sherlock Holmes?” he asked. 

“I could be wrong, but I think that’s none of your business,” she said firmly. 

“It could be.” The man shifted back in his seat, as if she were an interesting specimen and he wanted a better view. 

“It really couldn’t.” 

“Trust is not a luxury in which most homeless teenagers choose to indulge,” the man continued. 

There was something curiously familiar about him, but she couldn’t place it. Not yet, anyway. 

“Who says I trust him?” 

The man smiled. “Two lunches at Angelo’s.” 

She shrugged. “Free meals.” 

“Two lunches at Angelo’s, at which Sherlock _ate_.” 

There it was: ‘Sherlock’ again. Not ‘Holmes,’ not ‘your employer,’ not ‘the man in question.’ Just ‘Sherlock.’ 

“Maybe he was hungry,” she offered coolly.

The man was silent for a moment, and somehow, out of that silence, that stillness, she plucked her answer. 

“You’re a relative,” she said. “Older brother, probably.” 

The tiniest flicker of surprise flashed across the man’s face. 

“Very good,” he said. “That explains it quite nicely.” 

Muriel wasn’t sure what exactly ‘it’ was, but she wasn’t going to bother asking. 

“I’m useful to him,” she said instead. “I’m useful, he pays me. End of story.”

Sherlock’s brother shook his head slowly. “I’m afraid that, with Sherlock, it’s never quite that simple.” 

“On the contrary,” Muriel said, thinking of all the observations Sherlock could make about her and never did, “Sherlock keeps everything remarkably simple.”

The car slowed to a stop. 

When the driver opened the door, she realized they were outside Maggie’s flat. So much for having a safe place to sleep. 

“It was very nice to meet you,” the man said. 

She ignored him and ducked out of the car. To her surprise and alarm, he followed, looking around the neighbourhood with narrowed eyes and swinging his umbrella. 

“Do you have an umbrella?” he asked her in a precise, courteous tone. 

“Is that some sort of code?” 

His eyes widened fractionally. “No. I truly mean to ask if you own an umbrella.” He tapped his own against the pavement. 

“No,” she said. She was lucky that she owned an extra pair of clothes to change into when she got soaked watching one of Sherlock’s marks. 

Honestly. An _umbrella_. Out of everything she might need or find useful to have. This man might be a Holmes, but he was also an idiot. 

Abruptly, he thrust it out toward her. “Take it,” he said. 

She didn’t. 

“You spend most of your days conducting surveillance, much of it outside. We’re in London; it rains frequently. You’ll stay drier.” 

If she weren’t so convinced that the umbrella was bugged in some way, she almost would have been touched. 

“It’s awkward to manoeuvre with,” Muriel said. 

“Oh. Of course,” Sherlock’s brother said, but he made no move to depart. 

He looked so out of place, awkwardly leaning against his umbrella in this grubby little neighbourhood, it was ridiculous. 

“May I go?” she asked finally, when almost a minute had passed in silence. 

“Of course,” he said again. 

She turned to leave. Before she was even to the door, she heard the sound of the car driving away. 

 

The next night was a Tuesday. By the time she arrived, Sherlock was already at their meeting place, pacing. 

“You met my brother,” he said. 

She sat, pulled out her notebook, and watched him continue to stride back and forth in front of the bench. 

“Yes.” 

“What did he want?” 

“Nothing much, as far as I could tell, except to give me his umbrella.” 

Sherlock stopped pacing to stare at her. “Mycroft offered you his umbrella?” 

“Yes? He told me to take it, anyway.” She wasn’t sure if that constituted an ‘offer’ in Holmes-speak. 

“You didn’t take it.” He resumed pacing. 

“Of course not.” 

Sherlock stopped again, frowning, his brow furrowed. “You… could have.” 

“Umbrellas are awkward,” she explained. “And I assumed it was bugged.” 

Sherlock shook his head. “It’s not.” 

She shrugged. “Well, I didn’t take it.” 

Sherlock sat next to her. He didn’t even glance at her notebook, although Muriel was rather pleased with the data she’d managed to gather since Friday. 

She wanted to him to read it and tell her she was brilliant, better than anyone at the Met. He said things like that, sometimes. It was nice. 

“Tara…” he began. He was still frowning. “I wish first to make clear that your life is your own and I do not plan on interfering in anyway, but – your life would surely be easier… safer… if you didn’t live on the streets. I’ve a friend at the Met, Detective Inspector Lestrade – he could arrange for you to meet with a social worker, find a – family –”

“No,” Muriel interrupted. “Thank you, but _no_.” 

She didn’t want to lose Sherlock. In some bizarre way, he was all she had. Why did he have to bring it up? 

He continued to stare at her worriedly. 

“I’ve been in the system before,” she said, aware that her voice was becoming louder but unable to stop herself. “I’ve tried it. Honestly, I have. But I just… I couldn’t do it anymore, and I can’t do it, and I’m not doing it.” 

_And you can’t make me_ , a childish voice inside of her added. 

She fixed Sherlock with as steady of a look as she could manage. “You know what it’s like to be different. ‘Too smart for your own good,’ and all that. You honestly think there’s a family out there that could handle that when it doesn’t come from their own kid?” She tried to say it like she didn’t care. She thought she succeeded. 

“You’re right, of course,” he said, and she felt relieved and hurt all at once. 

Relieved, because Sherlock would drop it and she wouldn’t have to give this up and it would all go back to normal – and hurt because he was the smartest person she’d ever met, and if he didn’t think she could possibly be loved by someone, then she couldn’t. 

“Besides,” she said, in the lightest tone possible. “If I went into foster care, I probably wouldn’t be able to work for you anymore. And then what would you do? You’ve been spoiled by my stellar surveillance skills.” 

“I have,” Sherlock agreed. 

The next Tuesday night, she was late. Very late, actually – so late that she was half-expecting Sherlock to no longer be waiting for her – and her wrist was sprained. 

Rather badly, too, as far as she could tell, and she desperately wanted to hide it from Sherlock but knew there was no point in trying – indeed, that it would be worse if she did. 

She wasn’t completely sure what ‘it’ represented in this case, either, but she didn’t want to find out. 

By the time she’d been in a position to text, she was only ten minutes away from the park, and figured it was pointless. Besides, she wasn’t sure that Sherlock would approve of a text that was not specifically about a mark. 

“Just the wrist, then,” he said, scanning the rest of her as efficiently as ever, despite the dark. 

“Yes.” 

She set her bag down and handed him the notebook. She tried to avoid using her left hand as much as possible, and it made the ordinary procedure awkward. 

He took the pages and passed her the usual fee. 

Sherlock was quieter than normal as he flipped through her notes. 

“You need to have that looked at,” he said finally. 

“It’s fine,” Muriel insisted. 

“It’s not. I have been injured… many times on cases, and that sprain requires a doctor.” His jaw was set. 

“I’m not going to a clinic. They’ll – no.” 

_They’ll make me see a social worker._

_They won’t let me leave._

_They won’t let me come back._

Sherlock glared at her wrist.

“My partner is a doctor. We have the necessary supplies at our flat.” 

“No,” Muriel said instinctively. 

It wasn’t that she didn’t trust Sherlock, because she did, mostly, at least in all the relevant ways. 

But. Going to his flat, meeting his partner… it would be another step toward _something else_ , another small slide into roles that were not simply Consulting Detective and Homeless Network Contractor. Sooner or later, if she kept taking these small steps, Sherlock or his partner would make a call, and she’d end up with another guardian who despised her. 

“I promise you, we’re not going to phone the police or anybody else who would have an interest in nosing around your affairs,” Sherlock said. 

She was tempted. Really, she was. 

Her wrist _hurt_. 

Sherlock’s face stiffened again, and she expected him to make some comment about her loss of utility, but instead he said, “Please.” 

“Fine,” she said. 

Before she could lean down to grab her bag, Sherlock picked it up and slung it over his shoulder. 

“This way,” he said. He pulled out his phone and sent a text, presumably to his partner.

They hadn’t walked more than a block before a long, black car pulled alongside them. 

Sherlock sighed and opened the door before the driver could emerge. 

Peering in, Muriel could see that the interior was Mycroft-free. 

“After you,” Sherlock said.

They got in. 

“Is he always like this?” she asked as the car began to move. 

“Meddlesome? Overbearing? Yes.” He looked out the window, likely checking their route.

“Do I need to… do something?” 

Sherlock glanced at her curiously. “Such as?” 

“Try harder to avoid CCTV cameras,” she offered. 

“Don’t bother,” Sherlock replied. “Doing so would unnecessarily interfere with your work.” 

After a moment, Muriel asked, “What does your partner know about me, anyway?” 

“That you’re a member of my Network who has a small injury that requires his attention,” he said. 

“But he won’t _fuss_?” 

Sherlock grimaced. “He might. But I can stop him from taking any dramatic measures, I assure you.” 

“You’re positive? Because if – ”

“He’s a doctor. Your wrist will be his priority, and if your consent for treatment is conditional on his silence regarding the rest of your life, he’ll comply,” Sherlock said crisply. 

Muriel nodded, and they lapsed into silence. 

A few minutes later, the car turned onto Baker Street and stopped in front of 221. 

“Here we are,” Sherlock said unnecessarily. 

Muriel followed him into the building and up the stairs. 

Sherlock opened the door and ushered her into a spacious but cluttered sitting room. A skull sat on the mantle, and a dozen large crime scene photographs covered one wall. 

A blond man in an oatmeal jumper – Sherlock’s partner – was slumped in an armchair, but he jerked awake at the sound of their entrance. 

“Your shoulder won’t thank you for that tomorrow,” Sherlock said briskly, nodding at the chair. 

The doctor glanced at his watch pointedly. “Later today, actually.” 

As he stood, he looked at Muriel properly for the first time. Then he looked at Sherlock. His expression was caught between astonishment and displeasure. 

“Right,” said Sherlock. “John, this is Tara, my injured consultant. Tara, this is Dr. John Watson, my partner.” 

“It’s nice to meet you, doctor,” Muriel said politely. 

“Tara’s wrist is sprained,” said Sherlock. 

“Tell me this _didn’t_ happen because of something she was doing for you,” John said, his voice hard. 

Sherlock turned to Muriel. 

“No,” she said. 

John nodded and disappeared down the hall. 

“Sit,” Sherlock said, gesturing toward the sofa. 

She sat gingerly, still taking in the books, papers, and astonishing array of general clutter that filled the space. 

John reappeared, a first-aid kit in his hand. 

“Sherlock, could you get a glass of water and a parametecol, please?” he said. 

The doctor sat next to her on the sofa and felt her wrist carefully.

By the time Sherlock rejoined them in the sitting room – with a bag of frozen peas, in addition to the water and pill – John had wrapped Muriel’s wrist and instructed her not to strain it further. _Obviously._

“You’ll stay here tonight, then,” John said as Muriel swallowed the pill. 

“No,” she said at once. “Thank you.” 

“It’s past midnight,” the doctor argued. “You can’t leave now.” 

“Why not?” She met his gaze calmly. 

“Will you be able to get in at Maggie’s?” Sherlock murmured. 

Muriel looked down and shook her head. 

“Stay,” Sherlock said. “One night. John can check your wrist in the morning.” 

“There’s an extra bedroom upstairs,” John added. 

She glanced between them. “Your old bedroom,” she decided. 

John smiled. “Yes, it was.” 

Muriel looked harder at the doctor. “Afghanistan or Iraq?” 

Improbably, John’s smile widened. “Afghanistan. How did you know?” 

“Sherlock’s comment about your shoulder wasn’t just the ordinary concern of a conscientious partner, no, you’ve got an old but once-serious shoulder injury to contend with. Old? Yes, because after stretching once you awoke, your shoulder hasn’t troubled you at all. Serious because Sherlock’s still asking after it. There’s an RAMC mug on the table, yours, obviously, so, shot in the shoulder on tour and invalided home. Where would a British doctor most likely be shot in the last, say, six years? Afghanistan or Iraq.” 

“Brilliant,” John said. “What else?” 

Muriel stared. What _else_?

“You’ve just told me the bedroom upstairs used to be yours – flatmates first, then lovers. Invalided home, Army pension’s not much, if you wanted to stay in London – which clearly you did – you needed a flatmate. Bit of an unusual situation, a wounded Army doctor needing a flatmate, so your flatmate would have to be unusual as well. I know Sherlock’s frequently in and out of St. Bart’s, he speaks of its labs with a long familiarity that leads me to believe this is not a recent development. Conclusion: that’s where you met – perhaps you were visiting an old school friend? Sherlock’s detective work meant you weren’t bored, your medical degree and combat training made you useful to Sherlock, somewhere along the way you fell in love.” She waited. 

“Amazing,” said John. He sounded as if he meant it. 

“That’s not what people normally say,” Muriel said. 

John nodded thoughtfully. “What do people normally say?” 

_Freak._

_Get the hell away from me._

_Mind your own business._

_Don’t even look at me._

_Not another word, you understand? Not one more word._

_Fuck off._

Muriel shrugged. “Depends.” 

“Don’t listen to any of them,” John said. “They’re all idiots. Right, Sherlock?” 

“Quite right,” Sherlock said, but his voice was odd – soft, somehow. 

“So. I’ve passed the test, will you stay the night?” John asked. 

Muriel frowned. 

“He meant what he said,” Sherlock said. “He really does think you’re brilliant and amazing. He’s not just saying that to manipulate you. John doesn’t manipulate people.” 

“All right,” Muriel said. “Tonight.” 

_Not a precedent, not a precedent_ , she thought to herself. 

 

She’d intended to slip out early in the morning, but Sherlock had apparently anticipated this plan, for he and John were both in the sitting room when she made her way down the stairs. 

“You can go back and sleep for a bit, if you’d like,” John said. He looked remarkably alert for a man who couldn’t have slept for more than a few hours. 

“I’m all right,” she said. She was sensing a conversation, and she’d rather have it out now. 

“No, you’re not,” said John. 

Muriel looked at Sherlock with alarm. 

“We’re not calling anyone,” he assured her, still in the quiet voice from the night before. 

She glanced back at John. “You’re not happy about it.” 

“I’m a man of my word, and I don’t like to break promises Sherlock’s made, either,” he said. 

“I appreciate that,” she said, because she did. 

“Pass me your mobile,” John said unexpectedly. 

She didn’t hesitate to do so, but she wondered what that meant: was she no longer allowed to work for Sherlock? Because that would be – rather awful, and for more reasons than one. 

“I’m adding my number to your contacts,” John said, which was just as unexpected as the demand for the mobile had been in the first place. 

He handed it back to her, and she put it in her pocket, still confused. 

“If you have an emergency, medical or otherwise, I want you to call,” John explained. 

Muriel looked at Sherlock. This was a business-only mobile. 

“John will be very unhappy with both of us if you don’t,” Sherlock said, so she assumed he had acquiesced to the arrangement. 

“And if there’s ever….” John stopped. “If you’re ever in need of a place to stay for a night or two, come here. You’re right that I am less than thrilled about this situation, but it’s more important to me that you have people you can trust in a crisis than anything else.” 

Most social workers would call persistent homelessness a crisis, but Muriel was pleased that John’s definition seemed more in line with her own. 

She resolved never to call, never to stay another night. She didn’t like crises. 

“Thank you,” she said. 

“Promise,” Sherlock said abruptly. “Or else you won’t.” At her startled look, he added, smiling, “I _know_ you.” 

He knew her. Imagine that. Someone – and not just anyone, but an amazing someone – knew her and still, apparently, liked her. 

“I promise.” 

“Excellent,” John said. “Now, how do you like your eggs?” 

 

The next night, a small, compactible umbrella was propped outside Maggie’s door.

 _For Tara. MH_ , the note read. 

She couldn’t always use it when it rained – open umbrellas really were awkward – but when she did, she made sure to nod at the nearest CCTV. 

 

 _On a case. Mycroft will meet you at Angelo’s instead. SH_

 

When she thanked Mycroft for the umbrella, he waved a hand and informed her that he’d already ordered her usual. 

She didn’t mention it, but his new lover wasn’t nearly as posh as he was and Mycroft was desperate for the relationship to work. Mycroft called her out on noticing anyway. 

He didn’t seem upset. Instead, he said that his boyfriend was a much better man than he, lower pay grade notwithstanding. 

 

Sherlock never mentioned John or her night at Baker Street at their meetings. 

Muriel was more careful than ever about avoiding injury. 

 

_Nice press conference. Love the hat. T_

At their next lunch, Sherlock brought her a deerstalker. 

Her marks changed with Sherlock’s cases, but their meeting pattern never did. 

 

_Don’t go to Maggie’s tonight. There was a murder-suicide a block away. The police are everywhere and the residents are less than pleased. SH_

_Noted. T_

She was glad he hadn’t invited her back to Baker Street. He knew she could make other arrangements. 

 

It was a Wednesday evening, it wasn’t raining, and life was about as stable and comfortable as Muriel could expect.

She turned into an empty alleyway on her way to Maggie’s, one she knew wasn’t covered by CCTV. 

She wasn’t avoiding Mycroft, exactly, she just wanted to have a little fun. 

Muriel was halfway down the alley when she noticed the man, curled up against the wall, bleeding and very still. 

After another three steps, she recognized the coat. 

_Fuckfuckfuckfuckfuck._

She flew to Sherlock’s side, ripping her jeans as she fell to her knees, but all she cared about was – yes, breathing. 

She fumbled for her mobile. 

John picked up on the third ring.

“Tara?”

“It’s Sherlock, he’s really hurt, you need to call Mycroft and have him send an ambulance here, _now_.” She gave him the location of the alley and hung up.

John needed to concentrate on calling emergency services; she needed to concentrate on Sherlock. 

“Sherlock? Can you hear me?” she whispered, her eyes darting over his body. 

No response. 

She was terrified that if she moved him, she would injure him further. Isn’t that what they always said, wait for the paramedics to do anything? 

But what if they arrived too late? What if she was the only chance Sherlock had, and she messed it up, because she was scared and useless?

She knew blood loss was always dangerous, but he hadn’t been shot – she thought, anyway – and there didn’t appear to be any one, specific place from which the blood was coming – though the blood was coming, seeping out from beneath his clothes and spreading onto the pavement below. She didn’t want to exacerbate any internal bleeding by pressing on the wrong area. 

It was his partner Sherlock needed, his partner, with combat experience and medical training, not her, and, anyway, if Sherlock – not that he was going to, he couldn’t, definitely not – but he would rather it was John beside him. 

Her mobile chimed. 

_Ambulance in 2 minutes. MH_

Two minutes. Muriel could handle two minutes. Sherlock could handle two minutes. 

Right? 

“Sherlock. Sherlock. Stay with me,” she said. 

He moaned and his eyelids flickered, but neither seemed to be a direct response to her command.

She placed her fingers around his wrist, felt the pulse, which was as weak as his breathing was shallow. 

“Sherlock, you need to listen to me right now, the paramedics are on their way, they’ll be here soon and you just need to hang on until then, all right? Can you do that? Because John really, really needs you to do that. And I’m sorry John’s not here right now, but he’ll be with you soon, so think about John, and seeing John, and he’ll be – just stay, yeah? Listen to me and hang on and everything will be fine, more than fine –” she babbled and murmured and cajoled and bargained until the paramedics arrived. 

They didn’t ask her any questions, simply surrounded Sherlock with a small army of efficiency. She didn’t know anything useful, anyway. 

Moments later, when the ambulance sped away, sirens blaring, there was no one left to watch her collapse against the wall, staring at the smears of blood on the pavement. 

She cried until she couldn’t breathe and then just a little longer. 

Once her breathing was even again, she picked herself up, wiped her bloodied hands on her bloodied jeans, adjusted her bag over her shoulders, and made her way to the hospital she thought Mycroft was most likely to have selected. 

 

After she’d overheard enough to confirm that she’d picked the correct hospital, she went across the street to wait. 

Muriel didn’t like the idea of lingering in a building full of doctors and nurses and nosy social services staff. 

She sat on a bench, bowed her head, and breathed. 

After a while, she washed her hands in a fountain and switched benches. 

Sherlock’s blood started to dry on her jeans, and she stared at the dark patches, mesmerized. She could find someplace to change into her extra pair, but – it didn’t feel right. Not yet. 

A few hours passed. Traffic dwindled to almost nothing. 

Muriel slipped back into the hospital. Enough time had gone by: she would be able to hear an update, if nothing else. 

 

She found Sherlock’s room number and, unable to resist, snuck past Mycroft’s guards. She wanted to see him for herself, not just read his file. 

She didn’t know why she had expected that Sherlock’s room would be empty – if she had been thinking properly, she wouldn’t have – but she wasn’t thinking properly, she was still more than half-frantic, which was ridiculous because he wasn’t even hers to be frantic about – but regardless, the room wasn’t empty in the least. 

John, Mycroft, and a man she recognized from Sherlock’s press conferences as Detective Inspector Lestrade looked up at her in surprise. 

“Sorry,” she whispered, and backed toward the door, even as her eyes sought the sleeping Sherlock, who was covered in bandages and attached to a half-dozen quietly beeping machines but nevertheless appeared to be very much alive. 

“It’s all right,” Mycroft said, as John said, “Tara. Of course.” 

Lestrade glanced between them curiously. The police officer was holding Mycroft’s hand, and under any other circumstances, Muriel would have grinned – and then fled, because he was a police officer – but instead she looked back at Sherlock. 

“Thank you for calling me,” John said from his seat directly next to Sherlock’s bed. His hands were gripping the armrests tightly, as if he were afraid to touch his injured partner but needed _something_ to hold. 

Muriel nodded. 

“At some point, you’ll have to tell me how you evaded my guards,” said Mycroft conversationally, as if they were not all gathered around his younger brother’s sickbed. 

“But then how will I see Sherlock?” She’d meant to respond in a light, detached manner, but the question came out as anything but. 

“You could ask,” Mycroft replied. 

Muriel glanced at John. She assumed he would be angry with her for intruding, but instead he simply seemed very sad and very tired and very worried. 

Which made perfect sense, because Sherlock was his partner and John had every right to be sad and tired and worried.

She watched Sherlock’s steady breaths for another minute. 

Finally, she said, “I should go. Thank you for letting me see him.” 

Lestrade spoke for the first time. “Do your parents know you’re here?” 

“Kind of,” she said, keeping her eyes on Sherlock. 

“But you came here alone?” he asked. 

She nodded. 

She waited for John to say something, to tell Lestrade exactly who she was and why no one cared that it was past one o’clock in the morning and she was at a hospital while still covered in someone else’s blood, but the doctor remained silent. Everything felt too slow and too still. 

“I’ll take you home, then,” the police officer said. 

“No,” she said at once. “It’s fine. Thank you.” 

Lestrade frowned. “I’m going to take you home. It’s too late for you to be out by yourself.” 

Muriel took a deep breath, her mind racing to determine how exactly to extract herself from the situation without pushing John or Mycroft to reveal her, when the elder Holmes spoke. 

“I’ll do it, Gregory,” he said, standing up. 

Lestrade stood up, too. “No, Mycroft, I can do it, you should stay here with John – or go home and sleep, something, but I can take her home.” 

“I know where she lives,” Mycroft said calmly. “I’ll do it. All right?” he asked her. 

“Thank you,” she said. 

John cleared his throat, and she turned to him, every muscle taut, although she knew that if John said – anything – there would be no time for flight. 

“You should stop by in the morning. He should be awake, then,” he said. 

Mindful of Lestrade and keen on ensuring the D.I.’s continued ignorance, Muriel tried not to stare. 

“I’m not sure – ” she began. 

“He’d love to see you,” John insisted. 

Muriel glanced at Mycroft, who inclined his head. 

“Good night,” Mycroft said to the others, and ushered Muriel out of the room. 

“You don’t have to take me anywhere,” Muriel said at once. She felt guilty for making him leave Sherlock. 

Mycroft raised his eyebrows but didn’t reply.

When they entered his car – one of his cars – a car controlled by him – the car, anyway – she opened her mouth to tell him that she couldn’t go to Maggie’s, but he beat her to it. 

“I presume that at this late – or should I say, early – hour, you will be unable to gain entrance at either Maggie’s or a shelter,” he said. 

Muriel nodded. 

“Then you’ll have to stay with me for the night,” Mycroft said. His tone made it clear that there was no point in disputing the matter. 

“You don’t have to,” she said. 

“I am aware,” Mycroft said. “But I wish to be of assistance, and I believe this is what Sherlock would want.” 

Muriel thought that unlikely. 

“Not unlikely,” Mycroft said. “Fact.” 

 

Mycroft’s house was both precisely as posh and somehow much less intimidating than she’d expected. It was large and open and bright and, sure, everything was of an absurdly high quality, but in an understated manner: nothing flashy, no dark Victorian furniture or heavy drapes with ugly but distinguished patterns. 

It wasn’t _stuffy_ , which was surprising, because that was practically the definition of Mycroft’s public persona. 

“Are you hungry?” Mycroft asked, bending down to take off his shoes. Naturally he wouldn’t toe them off like a normal person. 

Muriel took in the gleaming countertops, the enormous refrigerator, the bowl of fresh fruit almost carelessly sitting on a small table. The kitchen alone was larger than some flats she’d been in. Most of the flats she’d ever been in, actually. 

Yes, she was hungry. 

“I need to send a few work emails. Please, help yourself,” he continued, gesturing toward the pantry. “Stairs are just around the corner. The first rooms on both sides are guest rooms; choose whichever you prefer. We’ll have breakfast here in the morning before going to the hospital.” 

And Muriel knew that was precisely what would happen. Life – the next nine hours of it, anyway – was so clear, so simple, when Mycroft was involved. When Mycroft was in charge. 

It was an easy feeling to grow attached to. 

Dangerously so. 

She crossed to the refrigerator. 

Tomorrow, she would see Sherlock, see that he would be fine, because he would, because he had to be. Tomorrow night, she would go back to Maggie’s.

Now, though, she would eat. 

 

After Muriel awoke, she found a new pair of jeans and a new shirt neatly folded on the bathroom counter. 

They fit perfectly. 

She left her bloodied things – along with the pyjamas she’d discovered on the edge of the bed the night before – on the counter, because she wasn’t sure what else she was supposed to do with either set of clothes. 

“Good morning,” Mycroft said as she entered the kitchen. “Did you sleep well?” 

“Very well, thank you,” she said, crossing toward him. 

She didn’t tell him that the mattress had been impossibly, illegally comfortable, that his water pressure was excellent and he apparently had endless supplies of hot water, although all the hot water in the world wasn’t enough to wash away the feeling of Sherlock’s blood on her skin. She thought Mycroft rather knew it all already. 

“How do you take your eggs?” he asked, turning toward the refrigerator. 

She couldn’t speak. 

John had asked her that, after the one night Sherlock had convinced her to fully break her self-imposed boundaries and cross over to the domestic dark side. John had asked her that after waking up at dawn to ensure she wouldn’t leave without promising to contact them in an emergency. John had asked her about her egg preferences after tending to her wrist and letting her sleep in his old room and not thinking she was a criminal. John had called her ‘brilliant’ when she’d expected ‘bitch.’ 

John, who was Sherlock’s.

Sherlock, who was John’s. 

Sherlock, who was _in hospital_ , which was so far from acceptable because she could count the number of good men she’d met on two hands and, if asked, he was the one she’d name first.

He’d never win a humanitarian prize and no one would think to call him ‘nice,’ but she didn’t need nice or humanitarian and he was, somehow, exactly what she required. 

And he was hurt. So hurt he hadn’t been able to respond when she’d held him and begged him to _just hold on_ and it wasn’t about the job, it was about him and having someone who _knew_ her, someone who would buy her a deerstalker and tell her she was cleverer than everyone at the Met put together and respect her decisions. 

She opened her mouth to tell Mycroft ‘scrambled,’ but instead she said, “Have you found who did it?” 

She knew what ‘it’ stood for. 

‘It’ was hurting Sherlock, really hurting him, and leaving him to die in a CCTV-free alley and not counting on Muriel’s game with Mycroft to send her his way. 

Mycroft stood in front of the open refrigerator, one hand holding the egg carton, one hand on the door. 

“We know who. We’ve yet to apprehend them, but rest assured, we will, and sooner rather than later,” he said, his voice transitioning from gentle to grim as he spoke. 

“Good.” 

“Sherlock is very lucky that you found him,” Mycroft said. 

“I only wish I’d been there sooner.” 

But she’d been working. 

“We all wish it hadn’t happened in the first place,” Mycroft replied. “You did very well.” 

He pulled out a pan and a bowl from a cabinet next to the refrigerator. 

“Scrambled, then?” he asked, a small smile upon his lips. 

Muriel nodded and smiled back. 

 

Lestrade wasn’t in Sherlock’s room when Muriel and Mycroft arrived, but John was. If he had slept, Muriel couldn’t tell. 

“My guardian angel,” Sherlock murmured when he saw her, his voice hoarse and rough. 

“Good morning,” she said. 

Mycroft pushed her into the chair next to John’s. 

Sherlock’s face was one big bruise. Or, rather, a dozen different bruises all merging horribly together. There didn’t appear to be an inch of pale, untouched skin left. 

“When John gave you his number and told you to call, I believe he imagined it would be used for your emergencies, not mine,” Sherlock said, the suggestion of a smile tugging at his lips. 

“Yes. Well,” Muriel said, because she wasn’t at all sure how she was supposed to respond. 

“You stayed at Mycroft’s last night,” Sherlock deduced, although already his voice was weakening and his eyes were struggling to remain open. 

“I did,” Muriel confirmed. 

“Thank you,” John said to Mycroft, although Muriel couldn’t imagine why. 

 

_Sherlock will be in hospital for the next few days. I’ve been instructed to meet you at Angelo’s tomorrow for lunch._

_You don’t have to. Stay with Sherlock. T_

_Sherlock insists._

 

John beat her to Angelo’s, even though Muriel had made a point of arriving early. 

“Sherlock told me your usual,” John said, by way of greeting as she slipped into the seat opposite. 

“Thank you,” she said. 

This was worse than Mycroft. Mycroft was somehow less involved, even though she’d had more contact with him than with John. Mycroft wasn’t inclined to _care_ like John was. 

“He also informed me of your chemistry cover story. Are you really interested in chemistry?” And just like that, John surprised her again. 

He didn’t press her to return to foster care. He didn’t give her judgmental, worried looks. He didn’t ask where her parents were. 

Instead, John asked her about what subjects she was taking. He told funny stories from med school and his rugby-playing days. He regaled her with the most ridiculous cases he and Sherlock had ever solved. 

Muriel had expected John to make her feel guilty. She hadn’t expected him to make her laugh. 

“Listen,” he said, his voice suddenly serious, once they were both done eating. “Sherlock’s going to pretend that he’s well enough to meet you wherever he normally meets you on Tuesday nights, but he won’t be. You need to come to the flat instead.” 

“All right,” she agreed, without hesitation. 

“Thank you,” John said, the relief evident in his voice. “He’s going to be fine, though, in the end. No permanent damage, he just needs a lot of rest for a week or two.” 

Muriel offered him a small smile. “Sherlock, resting?” 

John laughed, some of the tension draining out of his shoulders. “It’ll be a challenge, I give you that.” 

As they made to leave, John handed her a white envelope. 

“Sherlock told me how much,” he said. 

Muriel nodded, not meeting his eyes, as she folded the envelope and stuck it in her pocket. 

There was nothing _wrong_ with what she did. She watched; Sherlock paid her. Simple and clean and completely reasonable.

“Hey,” John said, his voice soft. “Everything’s going to work out.” 

“I’ll see you Tuesday,” Muriel said. “Tell Sherlock I hope he feels better.” 

“You’ve got his number,” John replied. “Tell him yourself.” 

 

_Try not to drive John mad during your convalescence. He means well. T_

_Why does everyone seem to feel sorrier for John? I’m the injured one. SH_

_But noted. We’re planning on a weeklong Doctor Who marathon. SH_

_John says you’re welcome to join us. SH_

_Busy. T_

_Not after dark, you’re not. SH_

_At which point I’m busy being to Maggie’s on time, which you should already know. T_

_I have solved four cold cases this morning. SH_

_John is at Tesco. (We ran out of tea.) SH_

_I am fatally bored. SH_

_Don’t even say that. T_

_Apologies. SH_

_Busy. T_

_Come at seven. John wants to cook you something. SH_

 

On Friday, it was Sherlock who met her at Angelo’s. 

The next Tuesday, they returned to their park schedule. 

 

Muriel stopped playing her CCTV game with Mycroft. 

 

On the second Tuesday of August, Sherlock read her notes and grew absolutely still. 

“Baker Street,” he said, standing up from their bench and tugging her with him. “Now.” 

“Hello, Tara,” John said as they entered the flat. Sherlock hadn’t spoken since they’d left the park. “Everything all right?” 

Sherlock slapped Muriel’s notebook on the coffee table and whirled around to face them, his hands already tugging at his hair. 

“Sherlock?” John asked, glancing at Muriel for an explanation she couldn’t give. 

“I’ve had her following Lagrange,” Sherlock began, his voice brittle. 

“That’s the… smuggling case?” John asked. 

“I was _wrong_ ,” Sherlock said, stalking to the window. 

John gaped at his partner. “About?” 

“They’re all connected, don’t you see?” Sherlock cried. 

“Sherlock,” John said fiercely. “Calm down and tell us what you know.” 

“The smuggling case isn’t just the smuggling case. It’s also the Three Rivers Killer case,” Sherlock said. 

“The serial killer?” John said. “Lagrange is the serial killer?” 

“Not quite. His accomplice,” Sherlock said, his mouth twisting unhappily. 

“You’ve had her – ” John began, his voice low and dangerous. 

“I know, I _know_ ,” Sherlock said. He turned to Muriel. “You’re off Lagrange.” 

Muriel crossed her arms. “You’ll notice that I’m not actually dead.” 

“I’m trying to keep it that way!” Sherlock snapped. 

_Time to go_ , Muriel thought. 

“Right, then,” she said. “I’ll leave you to it.” 

“What?” John said, as Sherlock said, “Wait.” 

Sherlock pulled out his wallet, and Muriel felt sick. 

“I don’t care about the money,” she said. “I just want to help.” 

“I’ll put you on someone else, a different case,” Sherlock said, holding out the notes to her. 

She shook her head. 

She didn’t know why. Sherlock was offering her an alternative. 

But something about the situation didn’t feel _right_ anymore, didn’t make her feel settled and secure, and she needed out. 

“You need it,” Sherlock said. “Don’t be an idiot.” 

Muriel felt her face flush. Sherlock never, ever said that to her. “Like you’re not being an idiot right now. You don’t have enough to take in Lagrange or the Three Rivers Killer yet, so you’ll still need someone on him, but you don’t want that person to be me, even though I’m the best you’ve got. I thought you were a detective. I thought you _solved crimes_ , whatever it took.” 

“Not whatever. Not quite,” Sherlock said, his tone suddenly calmer. 

“You need to stay here,” John broke in. 

“What?” Muriel gasped. 

“Until the serial killer is caught. It’s not safe,” John insisted. 

“It’s _London_. It’s never safe,” Muriel retorted. 

John scowled. “It’s less safe at present, especially for you, given that you’ve been following around Lagrange for – how long, Sherlock? A week? Two?” 

“He hasn’t seen me. Because I’m _good_ ,” Muriel countered. 

“John’s right,” Sherlock said. 

“No.” 

“You should stay.”

“I am not yours to protect!” Muriel shouted, which was stupid, she wasn’t supposed to lose her temper, ever, especially not when she was in somebody else’s flat. Especially when that flat was Sherlock and John’s. 

“Yes, you are,” said Sherlock. 

Tears spilled down her cheeks, but it couldn’t be because she was sad, there wasn’t anything to be sad about, she hadn’t cried due to sadness in years – the night when she’d found Sherlock didn’t count, that was pure adrenaline and fear – so it must be because she was so very angry. 

“Tara –” John began. 

“That’s not even my _name_ ,” she snapped, still crying. “It’s Muriel. Good luck catching your killer.” 

She ran out of the flat, out of the building, away from Baker Street, away from John, away from Sherlock, away, away, away. 

 

When she finally stopped, she realized that her running had been in vain: she still had her mobile. 

She pulled it out of her pocket, half intending to leave it on the nearest bench, half intending to smash it, to watch it shatter beneath her feet. 

With the possible exception of refusing a new assignment, though, Muriel prided herself on her practicality. She took apart the mobile, placed the pieces back in her pockets, and set off toward one of her old haunts, a gathering place of sorts that she’d frequented less and less as she started spending most of her nights at Maggie’s. 

She couldn’t go back to Maggie’s. That would be the first place they looked for her. 

Unbidden, she heard Sherlock’s voice: _I know you._

 _No, you don’t_ , she thought back. 

 

The gathering place was abuzz when she arrived, and for half a second, Muriel was terrified that Sherlock and Mycroft had already put some grand search scheme into place. 

Then again, she thought, why would they? They had no reason to look for her, not when she wasn’t working for Sherlock anymore. Maybe she was safer than she’d thought. 

“Thank God you’re here,” someone said to her, tugging on her hands, and Muriel had to blink to recall herself to this old, familiar world. 

“Kate? What’s wrong?” she asked, taking in the woman’s tear-streaked face. 

“Annabelle. She’s missing. Please, you have to help me find her,” Kate begged. 

Muriel pushed all thoughts of Baker Street out of her head. _These_ were her people, and they needed her. 

“Of course I’ll help,” she said at once. “Take a deep breath and tell me everything.” 

Muriel knew Annabelle, Kate’s six-year-old daughter, relatively well. She’d often looked after Annabelle during the school year while Kate worked odd jobs or applied for others. When she could, Kate paid her in food and company. When she couldn’t, she paid in favours-owed, a currency just as potent on the streets as the pound. 

Now, Kate insisted that Annabelle hadn’t simply wandered off, and Muriel believed her. 

As soon as Kate had finished detailing Annabelle’s last known whereabouts, Muriel set off. 

She hadn’t needed to spend nearly three months working for Sherlock to know that the first hours after the disappearance of a child were the most crucial. 

“Wait,” she called to Kate, as the woman turned to speak to another potential searcher. “Have you contacted the police?” 

Kate shook her head and crossed toward her. “You know them. They won’t listen and they won’t help. Even if they did, they’d take Annabelle away from me as soon as they found her.” 

“Isn’t that something to work out _after_ we find her?” Muriel asked, despite herself. She didn’t trust the police any more than Kate did. 

Kate pressed her hands to her eyes. “If we can’t find her in another hour or two, I’ll call,” she said after a minute. 

“Okay,” Muriel said. “We’ll find her.” 

Muriel left, aiming for the place where Kate had left Annabelle. 

 

Taking in the scene, Muriel realized that even if Kate had called the police, they wouldn’t have seen anything useful. 

But she wasn’t the police, and she could read the kidnapper’s trail as easily as any other Londoner could read the map of the Underground. 

Muriel started to run. 

 

She shouldn’t have gone in. 

She really, really shouldn’t have. 

Too late. 

She saw the paint streak on the wall inside the abandoned factory, and then she _knew_ , and stepped back, crashing into an old crate, and _shit_ because that was loud and

“What was that?” 

And now her exit was blocked. 

She scurried back, her hands fumbling at the pieces of the mobile, she hoped this counted as an emergency and even if it didn’t it counted as a case, because Annabelle had been taken by the Three Rivers Killer and if the police didn’t come soon, Muriel – 

Footsteps, closer. 

“Who’s there?” The speaker was Lagrange. 

Covering the mobile’s light with one hand, she found Sherlock’s name, pressed “Call,” and shoved the mobile into the waistband of her jeans.

Lagrange stepped around the corner, his gun pointed at her heart. 

 

Her hands were bound tightly behind her, but least she was now with Annabelle, who was sobbing into the filthy rag Lagrange had used as a makeshift gag when he decided he couldn’t stand her crying any longer. 

Lagrange had left them alone in a pitch-black basement room, presumably while he went to wait for his boss. 

Who, once he arrived, would proceed to kill them. 

_Not helpful_ , she told herself sternly. 

“Shh,” she said to Annabelle. “People are looking for you.” 

She didn’t dare to hope that anyone was looking for her. 

Lagrange had smashed her mobile upstairs, and she couldn’t be sure that Sherlock had had enough time to trace the call. 

She wasn’t even sure if he’d even answered it. 

Why would he? 

She was no one to him, just another pair of eyes in his Homeless Network. 

To be sure, she was more observant than anyone else on the crew, but she was also more bothersome. She didn’t get the impression that Mycroft tracked any of the rest of them on CCTV. 

“Hey,” she whispered to Annabelle. “Do you want me to tell you a story?” 

The girl nodded, her eyes wide and wet, and Muriel awkwardly scooted closer to her. 

“Once upon a time,” she began in a low voice, her ears straining to hear any pertinent noises from above, “there was a pirate who sailed the Seven Seas…” 

Muriel spoke until her voice grew hoarse, and then kept going. 

She paused whenever she heard footsteps nearing the door, whenever Lagrange’s voice cut through the ceiling. 

At some point – when the pirates were about to discover the lost treasure of Anna Isle – Annabelle fell asleep. 

Muriel wondered what was taking Lagrange so long. 

Wasn’t the fear worse than anything? 

Lagrange was slow. 

The police – if they were coming, Kate said she’d call – were slow. 

She needed a plan. 

Muriel thought she could untie Annabelle’s bindings, but she doubted the young girl could undo hers in return. Even if she could get their hands free, the door was locked. And even if she knew how to pick a lock – which she didn’t – she didn’t have so much as a bobby pin to work with. 

Still, if she had to struggle with Lagrange or his boss – or, God forbid, both – when they finally decided it was time for the girls to die, she needed her hands. 

Pushing herself away from Annabelle, she searched for something Lagrange might have overlooked, something she could use to cut through the ropes… 

She bumped against a rolled-up carpet, rough and gritty. Maybe Sherlock or John could make something useful out of that, but she couldn’t. 

She wished she could _see_. 

She wished there were something to hide behind. 

She wished there were something to cut, something to throw. 

A loud crash reverberated through the room, startling Annabelle awake. 

“Tara?” the little girl whimpered into the dark. 

“Right here,” Muriel answered, wriggling back across the room even as the door flung open. 

It wasn’t until she saw Lagrange rushing across the threshold, gun in hand, that she realized how much she had been expecting Sherlock. 

_Idiot_ , she told herself. _No one is coming._

Muriel pushed herself against Annabelle, covering as much of the young girl’s shaking frame as she could, but Lagrange jerked her upright and slammed her against the wall, his gun pressed to her skull. 

Through the open door, she could hear only silence. What had caused the crash? 

Lagrange cut through her bonds with a knife she hadn’t noticed and pushed her toward Annabelle. 

“Pick her up, we’re leaving,” he snapped, the gun still trained on her face. 

Muriel could barely feel her hands, but she scooped Annabelle into her arms, stumbling as Lagrange shoved her toward the door. 

“Not a word, you understand? Not a word,” he hissed in her ear. He grabbed her arm with one large, strong hand and yanked them to the right. 

Lagrange pulled her into a run and Muriel hoped the crash of their footfalls was loud enough. She staggered as he shoved her down a different passageway, then ahead of him up a flight of stairs, she couldn’t keep this up for much longer, she was tired and stiff and Annabelle wasn’t that heavy but she was heavier than her pack and much more awkward, and anyway she’d already run so far that night – 

Through the moonlight afforded by the high windows, Muriel could tell that Lagrange was headed for a back exit. She needed to get him off-balance enough to grab the gun. If she had the gun – if she could just get the gun – 

There. Footsteps, behind them. 

She couldn’t stop to look over her shoulder, she had no way of knowing if the footsteps belonged to a police officer or to Lagrange’s boss, she didn’t know who they were running from – serial killer’s accomplices were not known for their loyalty – but she had to act, and she had to trust. 

She leaned toward Lagrange, purposefully stumbling, one foot in front of him, one foot behind, shoving him into the ground. 

Annabelle screamed through her gag as they fell to the floor, but Muriel couldn’t think about that, she elbowed Lagrange in the back before he had a chance to locate his lost gun and he cursed, flipping them over, knocking the breath out of her, and his gun was under them and he hadn’t reached for it but his arm was still over her windpipe and she – couldn’t – breathe. 

“Let her go.” 

She couldn’t breathe, but she _knew_ that voice. 

“Let her go, or I swear to God I will shoot you, right now.” 

Her vision grew blurry, but she didn’t want to see anything so much as to know if John really thought she was worth killing for. 

Lagrange swore, the pressure on her throat eased, someone pulled Lagrange off of her, and someone else – someone else? – was pulling her toward them as she gasped for air. 

“Muriel,” said the voice of the person holding her, and she knew that voice, too. “Muriel. Are you all right?” 

She nodded, her eyes squeezed shut, because she needed to breathe before she could work out anything else. 

“Muriel,” the voice insisted. “Look at me. Are you hurt?” 

She opened her eyes. 

Sherlock’s hands were on her shoulders, his grey-blue gaze steady. 

Behind him, a policewoman was comforting Annabelle; another familiar figure – Lestrade – cuffed Lagrange. 

She looked back at Sherlock. 

“You got my call,” she said, and began to cough. 

“Of course I did. Of course,” he said softly. He turned his head fractionally. “She needs water. Someone get me water!” 

“I’m really sorry,” she whispered, even though she wasn’t exactly sure what she was sorry for. 

“Shut up,” Sherlock said, and pulled her toward him, properly, into a hug. 

Muriel began to laugh. 

“Here,” said John, crouching beside them and handing her a bottle of water. 

She drank it greedily and too quickly, but John just said, “Easy now,” and Sherlock glared away a paramedic. 

The female police officer knelt next to John, Annabelle in her arms. 

“She says her mum’s name is Kate, but she doesn’t know their address. Do you know her?” she asked. 

Avoiding Sherlock’s and John’s eyes, Muriel nodded and told the officer about the unofficial watering hole she’d seen Kate at earlier. She didn’t mention why she had been there, or how she knew Kate and Annabelle. 

“Thank you,” the officer said, handing the girl to a paramedic and relaying the location Muriel had described. 

The woman knelt again, her eyes widening as she took in the scene: Sherlock had an arm around her shoulders, and John was holding her hands as he examined the rope burns on her wrists. 

“Hey there,” the officer said. “I’m Sergeant Sally Donovan. You’re safe now.” 

“She knows that,” Sherlock said stiffly. Muriel could hear his eye-roll. 

“You’ve been really brave tonight, and thanks again for helping us out with finding Annabelle’s mum,” Donovan continued. 

Muriel nodded. 

“If you give us your parents’ numbers, we can call them and have them pick you up at the hospital.” The sergeant smiled warmly. 

“That won’t be necessary,” Sherlock said. 

Muriel closed her eyes again. She didn’t want to see the look on the officer’s face when Sherlock explained who she was. 

“Excuse me?” Donovan said. “This girl has just been kidnapped. We need to contact her parents.” 

John squeezed her fingers lightly. 

She squeezed back. 

He’d offered to kill a man for her, after all. 

“Yes,” said Sherlock. “But we’re already here.”

What?

“What?” asked Donovan. 

“John and I are already here. _We_ are her parents, so you don’t need to call us,” Sherlock explained. 

That was… nice of him, actually, given what a disaster their earlier meeting had been. He would tell the police she was theirs, the police wouldn’t ask any questions, end of story. 

“I don’t understand,” said Donovan. 

“Sherlock and I adopted her,” John said. “She’s our daughter. No calls necessary.” 

Though why was _John_ of all people going along with this? At most, she’d expect him to remain silent and give her and Sherlock pointed, disapproving glances. 

“I have copies of the paperwork with me, if you’d care to look, Sergeant,” said Mycroft, appearing behind John. 

Paperwork? But – it didn’t have to mean – that didn’t mean it was real. Mycroft could create anything, and make it disappear just as quickly. 

“Yes,” said Sherlock. “Look, Muriel, Uncle Mycroft is here with _bureaucracy_.” 

Muriel looked up at Mycroft. He was missing his tie. 

“I dunno what he did with my bag… so I’ve lost my umbrella,” she said.

“Not a problem,” Mycroft replied. “Umbrellas are easily replaced. Nieces, less so.” 

She blinked and glanced at John, who nodded. 

“I can’t believe you didn’t _say_ anything,” Donovan complained. “You went and _adopted a child_ and didn’t tell anyone, who does that?” 

_People who aren’t really adopting the child_ , Muriel thought. 

“When did you adopt her, anyway?” Donovan asked. 

“Recently,” said Sherlock, and it was such a perfect answer that Muriel couldn’t help but grin. 

“Recently,” Donovan repeated, then – “ _Oh_. She’s your Tuesday-Friday, isn’t she?” 

“Yes,” said Sherlock, who was still holding her firmly against him. 

“You could have said something,” Donovan said, her voicing losing its harsh incredulity. “You could have said, ‘Sally, I’d love to fill out paperwork, but I’ve a meeting with a social worker about my daughter and need to dash.’ You could have said, ‘Normally I stick around for the arrests, but it’s midday on Friday and my daughter is expecting me.’” 

“I… didn’t expect you to understand,” Sherlock said. 

Donovan looked at Muriel. “Your father’s a bit of an idiot.”

“Isn’t everyone?” she replied. “Besides, he’s brilliant most of the time, so I think he gets a pass on this.” 

“No,” Sherlock whispered to her, completing her confusion. “Not on this.” 

Lestrade returned, standing close to Mycroft but not quite touching him. He was on the job, and nothing but professional. 

Donovan turned to her boss. “Did you know that Sherlock and John adopted a kid?” 

Lestrade met Muriel’s gaze. “I had some idea.” 

“We’ve got another genius in the family now,” said John. “I’m outnumbered and deliriously happy about it.” 

_I can’t make anyone deliriously happy_ , Muriel thought. Much less someone as _good_ as John. 

“You’re not also secretly married, are you?” Donovan asked, her hands on her hips. 

“What? No,” said John. 

“What could possibly lead you to conclude that?” asked Sherlock. 

“You’ve done it backwards, you know,” Donovan explained, smiling now. “You realize that most people go about it in a different order.”

“Sherlock and John aren’t most people,” Muriel said. “They’re better.” 

“What order?” Sherlock asked. 

“Normally, when people plan on having children together – and adoption definitely counts, I’m actually impressed you had the patience to go through the process – they get married first,” said Donovan. 

“Oh,” said Sherlock. He extracted himself from Muriel and turned to his partner. “John?”

“Oh, God, yes,” his doctor replied, reaching for Sherlock and pulling him into a fierce, albeit brief, snog, considering the circumstances. 

“Did they just get engaged at a crime scene?” asked Donovan, looking scandalized and glancing between Lestrade and Muriel for support. 

“Brilliant, isn’t it?” Muriel replied, sharing a grin with Lestrade.

“I quite agree with Muriel,” Sherlock said. 

Mycroft, of course, was not the grinning type, but even he appeared satisfied with the development. 

“Mummy will be so pleased,” he said, earning him an eye-roll from his bright-eyed brother. 

“Knowing the two of you, I suppose it wouldn’t have happened anywhere else,” Donovan sighed. 

“Quite right,” said Sherlock. “Muriel, you’ll be in the wedding party, of course?” 

“I – oh,” said Muriel, because that was such a bizarre and extraneous detail to include when no one actually planned on her sticking around until the nuptials. “Yes?” 

“Excellent,” said John, standing up and extending a hand toward her. 

“We’re done here,” Sherlock announced. “We’re taking Muriel home.”

_Home._

But 221B wasn’t really hers, was it? 

The car that transported them back to Baker Street was Mycroft-supplied, though Mycroft himself had remained on the scene with Lestrade.

Muriel leaned against Sherlock and closed her eyes and tried not to think too hard. If she thought about how close she and Annabelle had come – if she thought about all the times Sherlock and John and Mycroft had corroborated their story, had marked her as theirs – 

“Muriel,” Sherlock said abruptly. “Say yes.” 

She looked at him, then at John. 

“We have already,” John told her. “Weeks ago.” 

“The thought of you continuing to be unsafe, of you failing to be surrounded by people who _know_ you and would do anything for you – is no longer acceptable,” Sherlock said. 

“And if it’s not with us, then we will read a file on every family in England until we find one you want,” John said. 

Muriel didn’t want a thoroughly researched family: she wanted this one. 

But what if, someday down the road, their “yes” – so simple to give now, when she hadn’t been living with them – turned into a “no?” What if Sherlock grew tired of having to look after – or at least being told he ought to look after – someone smaller and younger and more vulnerable? What if John grew weary of being outnumbered? Maybe John did have infinite tolerance for Sherlock’s abilities – but there was no reason to expect that his patience would extend to include a teenager who wasn’t theirs. 

“When I told you that you were right, that no one would want someone has brilliant as you if you didn’t belong to them biologically – I only said that because I didn’t think you would want me to say that _I_ would. That we would. I wanted to continue to have an excuse to see you, to worry about you, and I knew you wouldn’t permit that if you thought I was pushing for something else,” said Sherlock, his voice low and earnest. “I am never going to grow bored with have you around, and John will be all the happier for having twice as much brilliance in his life.” 

“Please,” added John, and then, in a lighter tone, continued, “Sherlock has been composing mournful, angry violin pieces for weeks and I can’t bear it any longer.” 

“You compose?” asked Muriel, intrigued. 

“Yes,” said Sherlock. “Rarely, but yes. I’ll write something for you if you stay. And while we’re on the subject, John has been extremely displeased with me for ages, so really, to ensure our domestic stability, you must say yes.” 

“Mrs. Hudson will love you,” John added. 

“Our housekeeper, although she pretends she is merely our landlady,” Sherlock explained. “She’ll bring you tea and biscuits whenever you like and often even when you don’t.” 

“What does Mycroft think?” Muriel asked, because she knew that, however supposedly unwelcome he was, Mycroft came with the package. 

“Mycroft thinks we are all idiots. For waiting until now, that is,” Sherlock sniffed. “He finds you vastly interesting and would take you himself if we didn’t have the prior claim – and if he weren’t so incredibly unfit for parenthood.” 

“He made me eggs,” Muriel said slyly. 

Sherlock glared at John. “It is your job to exceed Mycroft in all areas of domesticity.” 

“Mycroft prefers swooping in unexpectedly, anyway,” Muriel told Sherlock.

“I am aware,” Sherlock said darkly. 

The car stopped in front of 221. 

As John dug in his pockets for the key, Muriel regarded the door, remembering how it had felt to slam it behind her the last time she’d been there – the last time she’d left. It had been early evening when she’d rushed out; now, it was just past dawn. 

“It doesn’t matter,” Sherlock told her. “If anyone is at fault for our last conversation, it is I.” 

John had only just inserted the key into the lock when the door was pulled open from inside, revealing a plump older woman with the kind of wrinkles that only appear through decades of good humour. 

“Boys!” she said, attempting to frown but failing wonderfully. “Mycroft has had _people_ going through your flat, rearranging furniture, by the sound of it. Woke me up in the middle of the night, it did.” 

“Apologies, Mrs. Hudson,” Sherlock said. He cleared his throat, and Mrs. Hudson’s soft brown eyes settled on Muriel. 

“Hullo, dear,” the older woman said. “Between the two of us, it looks as if you’ve had the worse night.” 

Muriel smiled. “It’s very nice to meet you, Mrs. Hudson, and I’m afraid the furniture moving was likely my fault. I’m Muriel.” She paused, met Sherlock’s hopeful gaze, and nodded. John, watching them, grinned in something approaching relief. “I’m their daughter.”


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> What Sherlock knows.

Out of the corner of his eye, Sherlock examined the teenaged girl who had sat on the other end of the bench: medium-length, dirty blond hair pulled into a ponytail; dressed in some kind of uniform – school, presumably. State school, definitely. 

She was waiting. 

So was Sherlock, who was waiting for Jane – one of his Homeless Network consultants – to give him the notes she had taken last night. Or was supposed to have taken last night.

The girl on the bench didn’t remove anything from her well-worn bag: not a mobile, not a school book, nothing. 

_Oh._

Obvious. 

“You’re not Jane,” Sherlock told her. 

“I’ve still got what you want,” she replied, unfazed. She unzipped her bag and handed him a notebook. 

Sherlock took it, flipped it open, and glanced through the notes. 

The observations weren’t in Jane’s style. 

They weren’t in Jane’s handwriting, either, but that alone would have been easy enough to explain: Jane could have written her notes on something less durable and given them to this girl for copying. 

But it wasn’t simply the handwriting that was different. No, the entire operation had been conducted in a distinctive, utterly un-Jane-like manner.

“Jane didn’t do the watching. You did,” Sherlock announced. 

The girl shrugged. “Problem?” 

Not at all, actually. The girl’s observations were superior. Sherlock would have to thank Jane for introducing them. 

“Your observations are better. Clearer, more nuanced,” he said. 

“I don’t do things halfway,” she replied.

Sherlock turned to her for the first time, really looked at her. She spoke the truth: the girl was homeless and coping with it in an admirable fashion. 

“No, you don’t,” he agreed. 

“Neither do you,” she told him, which was also quite true. 

Sherlock saw no _point_ in conducting his affairs only half-heartedly. He didn’t even think of himself capable. Prior to John’s involvement, he hadn’t been able to so much as eat while on a case, and if he could hardly multi-task, he certainly couldn’t do anything _tepidly_. 

That, in fact, had been one of his main problems with John’s girlfriends over the early years (‘the early years’ meaning ‘before Sherlock threw himself off of a building and got himself captured in Ukraine while John fell in love with an assassin’) – they were _tepid_. They had been tepid and mediocre and bland to the last, and John – despite his jumpers – was anything but; Sherlock knew that he himself was scalding and frigid in equal doses and exactly what John needed. 

According to John, Sherlock was also exactly what John wanted. 

_All’s well that ends well_ , Mycroft had said after they had finally – finally – finally gotten together. 

_All is not well that ends well_ , Sherlock had wanted to retort, because they should have had _years_ together before this, and he knew Mycroft was purposefully being smug and superior and attempting to force him to read some rubbish piece of classic literature, but John had gripped his hand, said “Yes,” and Mycroft had stalked out of the flat, and maybe all really _was_ well, at last. 

Sherlock pulled a note out of his pocket and passed it to the girl. 

“If you were smart, you’d make Jane let you keep it all,” he said. 

He knew it was unlikely: though the girl had done the watching, Jane had given her the job, and would take a significant percentage for that act alone. 

“I’m plenty smart, thanks,” she said, coolly defiant as she met his gaze. 

“Smart enough to keep Jane from turning on you if I decided to give you all her jobs?” Sherlock asked. 

“I can’t do the weekday jobs, can I? So she can’t complain that I’m taking everything.” The girl closed her bag, clearly assuming that the conversation was drawing to an end. 

Sherlock eyed her again, but for the life of him, he couldn’t determine what could be preventing her from being on hand to conduct surveillance for him at any hour of any day. 

“Why can’t you take the weekday jobs?” he demanded. 

“It’s only the end of May, isn’t it?” She paused, waiting for enlightenment that failed to arrive. 

What did it matter what month it was? 

“I’ve got school,” she clarified. 

_School_. What a plebeian excuse. 

He wrinkled his nose. “School’s boring.” 

“Yes, well,” she said, and he knew she knew he was right. “I’ve still got to go.” 

“What a waste,” Sherlock said. “You’re completely independent, and you’re using that independence to do exactly what dependent adolescents are forced to do.” 

“You went to uni. You’ve got a graduate degree. You’re not exactly the poster child for a successful dropout,” she informed him. “I’ve got another year before my GCSEs, even. And if you think living on the streets makes me independent, you’re an idiot, despite your fancy title. Homelessness is all about dependence, just of a different kind. School is the only chance I’ve got to become independent, someday. If that’s too _boring_ for you, then I’ll tell Jane I can’t cover her in the future.”

Brilliant. 

The girl was standing by now, annoyed with him, and Sherlock stood too. He made to hand her another note, but she ignored it. 

“Just between us,” Sherlock said. “Think of it as a signing bonus.”

She pocketed the note, and Sherlock decided he would have to track down Jane and give her a bonus of her own – a finder’s fee, as it were. 

“You’ll take the weekend jobs, then?” he asked, his mind racing as he mentally rearranged his Network’s assignments. If only the interesting criminals could be counted on to reserve their villainy for the weekends! 

“Anything outside of school hours,” she said. 

Sherlock looked at her blankly. 

School hours? How was he supposed to know what her school hours were? 

“Let’s say nothing seven a.m. to five p.m. Monday through Friday, through the first week of July,” she said. Her tone was patient, but Sherlock could detect a small undercurrent of glee: she was pleased that she knew something he didn’t. 

He could work with that. 

“Acceptable,” he said, and held out his hand. “Welcome to the Homeless Network, Miss…?” 

“My name is Tara,” she lied. 

Normally, Sherlock accepted lies of all sorts from the members of his Network. It didn’t matter to him if they were Tom or George, if they were seventeen or twenty-five. All that mattered was the Work. 

But not-Tara – she was better. So Sherlock called her on her lie. 

“No, it’s not,” he said. 

The girl stood firm. “Tara,” she said, shaking his hand. 

This was _excellent_. She knew he knew she was lying; she didn’t care, didn’t bat an eye. She would understand that it was all about the Work. 

“Fine,” Sherlock said. “Tara, then. I’ll text Billy when I’ve got a new job for you.” 

Billy had become something of a Network supervisor for the new recruits, a task made considerably easier by the fact that he was now clean. 

The last time Sherlock had needed to consult Billy while with John, John had pretended not to notice Billy’s sobriety, and Sherlock had pretended he hadn’t had anything to do with it. It was a good arrangement. 

“Looking forward to it,” Tara said. “This was fun.” 

That, Sherlock decided, was the best part about her: She meant it. 

“It is, isn’t it?” he replied. 

 

“You look pleased,” John said from his armchair when Sherlock arrived home.

“New recruit for the Network,” Sherlock replied, and decided kissing John on the nose (it was a lovely nose) would be an excellent use of his glee. 

 

Very quickly, Sherlock determined that Tara was skilled and dependable enough to require a mobile of her own. He hated to waste time working through Billy if he didn’t need to. 

“Business only,” he told her as he handed her the mobile. 

Tara rolled her eyes, an act that Sherlock found oddly endearing. 

“Like there’s anyone else I want to call,” she said. 

Sherlock almost frowned at this, but didn’t. 

Homeless or no, weren’t teenagers supposed to have people – friends, distant or otherwise destitute relatives, someone – they desired to contact? 

_Not my concern_ , he reminded himself.

“I prefer to text,” Sherlock said instead. 

“I know,” Tara replied. 

She was, Sherlock had to admit, rather perfect. 

 

As much time as he spent reminding himself that he didn’t care where she slept or if she ate or how lonely she felt – and that even if he did care – which he shouldn’t – or couldn’t – or something – it wasn’t any of his business – none of that stopped him from narrowing his eyes when she arrived at one of their meetings with a black eye. 

Tara’s mouth tightened, daring him to say something, willing him not to. 

Sherlock took her papers, handed the girl her fee, and left for Scotland Yard. 

He solved five domestic abuse cases the Met had put on the backburner for lack of manpower, just because he could. He even did the paperwork. 

 

There were bruises on her wrists. 

There were bruises on her wrists, but Sherlock knew he couldn’t tell her to call the police, knew he couldn’t demand to know who had dared to touch her.

“You’re useless to me if you’re dead or incapacitated,” Sherlock snapped, when what he meant was, _Please take care of yourself_. 

“Not planning on either,” Tara replied. 

_You don’t plan these things!_ Sherlock wanted to say. _They just happen – and then it’s too late._

 

Finally – finally – finally the term was over – according to Tara, anyway, Sherlock really didn’t know, but she did stop wearing her uniform – and Sherlock could give her a job he wouldn’t trust to anyone else. 

“I want all your focus on this,” he said. 

He meant: I know how much a night at Maggie’s costs and I’m paying you enough to sleep there every night and eat and a bit more, but not so much more that you’ll be suspicious, and please let that be enough for you to refuse all other offers of freelance employment. 

“Done,” Tara agreed, and Sherlock’s shoulders loosened. 

“Twice weekly check-ins, aside from the usual text protocol. Tuesday nights on the rotating park schedule, Fridays at twelve-thirty, Angelo’s,” Sherlock said. He pulled up a map on his mobile and pointed out Angelo’s cross-streets. 

Tara hesitated. 

She didn’t like the idea of meeting at Angelo’s. 

“I trust Angelo,” Sherlock assured her. 

_I want to see you eat_ , he pleaded silently. _Angelo won’t call the police; he’ll just want to feed you._

“Fine,” Tara said. 

Fine. 

 

Sherlock made sure to arrive at Angelo’s early for their first lunch, ensuring that Tara would have no reason to grow skittish and leave. 

“I’ve already ordered for us,” he said as she sat down. “Angelo believes you are the daughter of a friend of mine. You’re interested in chemistry but are unsure about attending university, so your mum has decided it would be beneficial for you to spend time with someone with a degree from Cambridge.” 

Tara had already informed him of her plan to attend university, and Sherlock was determined to support that desire in whatever way he could, even if it was as simple as mentioning Cambridge in a cover story. 

Tara raised an eyebrow – just one. Sherlock was impressed. 

“Are you telling me Angelo is under the impression that you are attempting to be a _good influence_?” Tara teased.

“Something like that,” said Sherlock. 

Tara had dark bags under her eyes – another night at a shelter that would turn a blind eye to underage individuals – and she was still too thin – Angelo’s pasta would help some with that, but not enough. 

When she teased him about the love-bites John had left around his collar, he smiled and couldn’t help but think that he at last understood how John felt – Mycroft’s snide observations, of course, didn’t count. 

When he’d met Tara, he’d liked her as a consultant. 

He hadn’t expected to like _her_. 

Mycroft’s old advice resounded once more in his thoughts: _All lives end. All hearts are broken. Caring is not an advantage, Sherlock._

But that had been years ago, pre-John – or, not exactly pre-John, but pre-relationship-with-John. Pre-sexual-romantic-relationship-with-John. 

Caring could be an advantage, if he was smart about it. 

Sherlock was always smart. 

 

_Interesting new recruit. MH_

_Merde_ , thought Sherlock. 

As a child, swearing had only been acceptable in their household if it could be accomplished in other languages, and the habit had stuck. He, at least, limited himself to the basics, and namely French, at that; Mycroft, the show-off, could swear in four dozen languages and had them on a rotating schedule. 

_Leave her alone. SH_

_No need to worry. Safely arrived at Maggie’s. MH_

Sherlock scowled. 

He was _handling_ the situation, and Mycroft would ruin it. Mycroft, for all of his backroom government dealings, was terrible with delicate personal relations. 

New relationship with Lestrade notwithstanding. 

_Does John know you have a fifteen-year-old on your payroll? MH_

_Merde_ , he thought again. 

No, John did not know. Sherlock had a niggling worry in his stomach regarding his decision to keep John in the dark about this fact – even though, apart from Billy, John had no dealings with anyone from his Network – but he was loath to disturb their status quo. 

_Stay out of this. SH_

Fifteen minutes later, in lieu of a proper response, Mycroft emailed him a file on Margaret Walker. 

 

As was his habit, Sherlock arrived at the designated bench before Tara. 

He used that time to pace. 

What to do, what to _do_? 

Rarely, if ever, was he caught in a trap of inaction. His relationship with John, in fact, was perhaps the only example he could think of – the only other instance in which action might have backfired beyond salvage. 

“You met my brother,” he said when Tara arrived, looking pleased with herself. 

“Yes,” she said, sitting. 

“What did he want?” Mycroft had been annoyingly silent regarding what had actually passed between the pair the night before. 

“Nothing much, as far as I could tell, except to give me his umbrella.” 

Sherlock stopped and stared. 

“Mycroft offered you his umbrella?” 

Sherlock wasn’t wholly sure that if it came between Sherlock’s life and Mycroft’s umbrella, his older brother wouldn’t choose the brolly and leave Sherlock to his fate. 

“Yes? He told me to take it, anyway.” 

“You didn’t take it.” He started pacing again. 

“Of course not.” 

Why _of course_? 

He stopped, frowned. “You… could have.” 

“Umbrellas are awkward,” Tara said, as if she’d already explained this to someone – which was likely the case. “And I assumed it was bugged.”

Clever girl. 

Clever, too-suspicious girl. 

Sherlock shook his head. “It’s not.” 

She shrugged. “Well, I didn’t take it.” 

Did Tara need an umbrella? 

She would need a coat, come winter. And – other winter things. Gloves and scarves and hats and so forth. Sherlock would have to determine how to provide her with proper gear.

But that was all for later. What did she need _now_ , and how could he convince her to let him give it to her? 

“Tara…” he started, knowing he had to say this properly or risk losing her. “I wish first to make clear that your life is your own and I do not plan on interfering in anyway, but – your life would surely be easier… safer… if you didn’t live on the streets. I’ve a friend at the Met, Detective Inspector Lestrade – he could arrange for you to meet with a social worker, find a – family –”

“No,” Tara said, her voice flat. “Thank you, but _no_.” 

He hadn’t expected her to accept, of course, but that didn’t stop him from hoping… 

But had he really even wanted her to say yes? Could he give her up to some unknown family? 

Mycroft could keep tabs on her, of course – but Sherlock simply didn’t have a logical reason to request further information. 

If she wasn’t in his Network, she wasn’t his business. 

“I’ve been in the system before,” Tara continued. “I’ve tried it. Honestly, I have. But I just… I couldn’t do it anymore, and I can’t do it, and I’m not doing it.” 

This answer, too, was one he should have predicted. 

Tara met his gaze steadily. “You know what it’s like to be different. ‘Too smart for your own good,’ and all that. You honestly think there’s a family out there that could handle that when it doesn’t come from their own kid?” 

Sherlock could tell she was feigning nonchalance, and it positively killed him. 

If someone – he wasn’t sure who or how, but that hardly mattered – were to informed him that he had died of rage and bitter understanding and aching sadness, he wouldn’t have blinked an eye. 

He couldn’t have blinked, of course, if he were truly dead – but, irrelevant. 

Sherlock did know what it was like to be different, and to be different in precisely the way – at least one of the ways – that Tara was different. It was why, of course, finding John had been such a surprise. 

“You’re right, of course,” Sherlock said, and that killed him, too, because he could see her shoulders loosen with relief that he wasn’t going to press the issue and the hurt in her eyes that he’d told her – how could he have told her? – that she was too different to be loved and accepted. 

“Besides,” she said, in a tone so light it pierced his chest and dove straight into his heart and lungs. “If I went into foster care, I probably wouldn’t be able to work for you anymore. And then what would you do? You’ve been spoiled by my stellar surveillance skills.” 

“I have,” Sherlock agreed. 

If he were the slightest bit less selfish – if he were the good person he tried to be for John – but he wasn’t, so he took her notes, paid her, and let her walk away. 

 

Tara was late. 

Very late. Worryingly late, but Sherlock didn’t want to text her, just in case – well, in case of something. 

She didn’t need to know he was worried, not if she was fine. Which she probably wasn’t. Which means he should text – 

_Where is she? SH_

_Who? MH_

_Now is not the time. Where is she? SH_

_Unsure. We do not have CCTV everywhere, much less on the side streets of the areas she is most likely to frequent. MH_

_Fix that. SH_

Later: _Five minutes out. Minor injuries. MH_

_Merde._

“Just the wrist, then,” Sherlock determined when finally – finally – finally she arrived, looking nervous and defiant and definitely in pain. 

“Yes.” 

Tara gave him the notebook and he really could not have cared less about its contents, but he read her notes and gave her their agreed-upon payment. 

“You need to have that looked at,” he said, before she could leave, before he could lose courage.

“It’s fine.” 

It was _not_ fine. 

“It’s not. I have been injured… many times on cases, and that sprain requires a doctor,” he said firmly. 

“I’m not going to a clinic. They’ll – no,” Tara said. 

Sherlock was nothing if not a problem-solver and bureaucracy-avoider. 

“My partner is a doctor. We have the necessary supplies at our flat.” 

“No,” Tara replied at once. 

This time, however, Sherlock wasn’t willing to take no for an answer. 

“I promise you, we’re not going to phone the police or anybody else who would have an interest in nosing around your affairs,” Sherlock said, even though he knew he ought to. 

She didn’t respond. 

“Please,” he added, because he almost never said please, wasn’t sure he had ever used the word with her at all, and he really, really needed her to say yes. 

“Fine,” she said. 

He could work with fine. 

Sherlock picked up her bag, and instantly he wondered who – if anyone – had done that for her before. Who had carried her first schoolbag for her when it grew too heavy for her little body? Who had carried _her_ when she was all small, soft limbs and big eyes? 

“This way,” he told her. 

_On my way. Network consultant with me; sprained wrist. SH_

_See you soon._

After a block, one of Mycroft’s cars pulled alongside them. Naturally. 

Sherlock stopped, sigh, and opened the door for Tara, who leaned down, clearly to see if Mycroft was waiting for them inside. 

“After you,” he said. 

“Is he always like this?” Tara asked. 

“Meddlesome? Overbearing? Yes.” Sherlock glanced out the window, pleased that Mycroft was, in fact, sending them to Baker Street, rather than a warehouse or secret government clinic where he could be even more interfering than usual. 

“Do I need to… do something?” 

Sherlock turned back to her. “Such as?” 

“Try harder to avoid CCTV cameras,” she suggested. 

Absolutely not. Then how would they – he – keep track of her? 

“Don’t bother,” Sherlock replied. “Doing so would unnecessarily interfere with your work.” 

They lapsed into a brief silence. 

“What does your partner know about me, anyway?” Tara questioned. 

“That you’re a member of my Network who has a small injury that requires his attention,” Sherlock replied. 

_Not that you’re young and on your own and I am unquestionably exploiting you against all good judgment_ , Sherlock thought. 

“But he won’t _fuss_?” 

Sherlock grimaced, because, yes, there was always that possibility. 

“He might. But I can stop him from taking any dramatic measures, I assure you.” Dramatic measures involving taking Tara to the police, that was. Dramatic measures involving refusing Sherlock tea for the rest of their lives – well, that wasn’t any concern of hers. 

“You’re positive? Because if – ”

“He’s a doctor. Your wrist will be his priority, and if your consent for treatment is conditional on his silence regarding the rest of your life, he’ll comply,” Sherlock said. He didn’t want to give her any reason to refuse him. 

Muriel nodded. 

They were silent until the car pulled in front of 221. 

“Here we are,” Sherlock said, which was a ridiculous, stupid, obvious thing of him to say, exactly the sort of thing he prided himself on not saying, but he felt that he had to say something, and ‘here we are’ was as good as anything else. 

As he ushered Tara into the flat, he tried to see it through her eyes, attempted to assure himself that there was nothing she would find unduly worrisome. 

But first, there was John, who was dozing in his armchair but had been startled awake by their entrance. 

“Your shoulder won’t thank you for that tomorrow,” Sherlock said, because he didn’t want to greet his partner with, ‘good evening, love, this is the fifteen-year-old who has been following criminals for me for the past two months, and now she’s injured because, did you realize, she’s homeless and that’s always a tad dangerous?’ Bit not good. 

John looked at his watch, then back at Sherlock. “Later today, actually.” 

He stood and – yes, this was it – looked at Tara. Then he turned to Sherlock, his expression quickly shifting from shock to displeasure. 

“Right,” said Sherlock. “John, this is Tara, my injured consultant. Tara, this is Dr. John Watson, my partner.” 

“It’s nice to meet you, doctor,” Tara said in what Sherlock assumed was her most polite voice. He wasn’t sure if that made this introduction better or worse. 

“Tara’s wrist is sprained,” Sherlock announced helpfully. 

John gave him a hard look, a _I know what you’re doing and it’s not going to work_ look. 

“Tell me this _didn’t_ happen because of something she was doing for you,” John said. 

Sherlock looked at Tara. He had assumed not – his Network watched, the police confronted – but – what if – ? 

“No,” she said. 

John nodded and went to fetch his kit. 

“Sit,” Sherlock said, gesturing toward the sofa. 

Tara sat. John reappeared. Sherlock wondered if, in breaking down the scene to the simplest of actions, he could stop the situation from spiralling out of control.

At this point, he wasn’t even sure what ‘in control’ would look like. 

“Sherlock, could you get a glass of water and a parametecol, please?” John asked. 

Sherlock swiftly made for the kitchen. Water, pill, anything else? Food, ideally, but – ice, for now – no ice – frozen peas it was then. 

By the time Sherlock returned to the sitting room, Tara’s wrist was bandaged and John was murmuring care instructions. But how well could she be expected to look after her wrist when she had other, larger problems? 

“You’ll stay here tonight, then,” John said as Tara swallowed the pill. 

Sherlock knew the answer to _that_. 

“No,” she replied immediately. “Thank you.” 

“It’s past midnight,” John argued. “You can’t leave now.” 

Maybe this was the real reason why Sherlock had brought her to 221B: so John could have the arguments with her about the things Sherlock didn’t dare to. 

“Why not?” she demanded. 

“Will you be able to get in at Maggie’s?” Sherlock asked quietly. 

If Maggie would still let her in at this time of night, then Mycroft could send a car to bring her there and at least she’d be marginally safe. 

Tara looked down and shook her head. 

Well, then. Apparently, avoidance was no longer an option. 

“Stay,” Sherlock said, desperately hoping Tara would concede and wouldn’t blame him for it the next day. “One night. John can check your wrist in the morning.” 

“There’s an extra bedroom upstairs,” John added. 

She looked at them. “Your old bedroom,” she said to John. 

John smiled. “Yes, it was.” 

Tara looked harder at his partner. “Afghanistan or Iraq?” 

Sherlock repressed a grin, but John didn’t bother. 

“Afghanistan. How did you know?” 

And now – 

“Sherlock’s comment about your shoulder wasn’t just the ordinary concern of a conscientious partner, no, you’ve got an old but once-serious shoulder injury to contend with. Old? Yes, because after stretching once you awoke, your shoulder hasn’t troubled you at all. Serious because Sherlock’s still asking after it. There’s an RAMC mug on the table, yours, obviously, so, shot in the shoulder on tour and invalided home. Where would a British doctor most likely be shot in the last, say, six years? Afghanistan or Iraq.” 

Amazing. 

“Brilliant,” John said. “What else?” 

Tara stared, clearly unnerved by John’s interest. 

“You’ve just told me the bedroom upstairs used to be yours – flatmates first, then lovers. Invalided home, Army pension’s not much, if you wanted to stay in London – which clearly you did – you needed a flatmate. Bit of an unusual situation, a wounded Army doctor needing a flatmate, so your flatmate would have to be unusual as well. I know Sherlock’s frequently in and out of St. Bart’s, he speaks of its labs with a long familiarity that leads me to believe this is not a recent development. Conclusion: that’s where you met – perhaps you were visiting an old school friend? Sherlock’s detective work meant you weren’t bored, your medical degree and combat training made you useful to Sherlock, somewhere along the way you fell in love.” Tara swallowed. She was waiting, Sherlock knew, for John to snap, to say ‘piss off,’ just as Sherlock had expected, all those years ago in their first taxi. 

But John never acted as expected, never acted the way boring, ordinary people acted, and would never tell a scared, clever girl anything that would validate her fear. 

“Amazing,” said John. 

“That’s not what people normally say,” Tara replied. 

_I know_ , Sherlock thought. _I know, but they don’t have to matter anymore, because we’re not most people and we will always – always – always encourage your deductions._

John nodded carefully. “What do people normally say?” 

Tara shrugged, as if she couldn’t remember, as if it didn’t matter. “Depends.” 

Sherlock wanted to find every single person who had ever once shunned her for her intelligence – find them and then inform them of their every dark secret, John by his side, just so they could see that there was someone who appreciated observation without being able to do much himself. 

“Don’t listen to any of them,” John said. “They’re all idiots. Right, Sherlock?” 

“Quite right,” Sherlock said. 

He wished – not for the first time, not for the last – that he had met John sooner. That John could have told him that Sebastian – or any, all of his classmates – was an idiot. Because even though John had been telling him he was brilliant and amazing for years now, Sherlock didn’t think he would ever grow tired of his admiration. Certainly he would never stop trying to impress his doctor. 

“So. I’ve passed the test, will you stay the night?” John asked. 

Tara frowned. 

“He meant what he said,” Sherlock interjected. “He really does think you’re brilliant and amazing. He’s not just saying that to manipulate you. John doesn’t manipulate people.” 

That was Sherlock’s job, at least when they were on a case. 

“All right,” Tara said. “Tonight.” 

Victory. 

John’s victory, of course. 

 

With Tara settled in John’s old bedroom, John looked pointedly at their room. Sherlock followed him. 

John closed the door behind them and stood, his arms folded. 

“Explain,” he said. 

Sherlock told him everything: their initial meeting, his delight in her abilities, Mycroft’s eventual, vague involvement, his insistence about meeting at Angelo’s, her insistence that he not go to the police. 

“All right,” John sighed, when Sherlock had finally finished. “All right.” 

“We can’t turn her in. I promised,” Sherlock pleaded. 

John sank onto the bed, rubbing the back of his neck. Sherlock joined him, but didn’t sit too close, as was his wont. He didn’t even try to hold John’s hand, even though he desperately wanted to. He didn’t deserve John, not right now, possibly not ever. 

“Okay. That’s – fair, I guess. You promised,” John said. “But now you have to promise me that you’ll look out for her. You can’t have her tail, I don’t know, drug lords or mass murderers.” 

“Of course not,” Sherlock said. “And Mycroft will help.” 

“This just – Jesus.” John ran a hand through his hair. “This is so messed up, Sherlock.” 

“This was the only way I could think of that didn’t end with her disappearing,” Sherlock said. 

“I know. And I can’t think of anything better. I just – she needs a family,” John said, flopping back onto the mattress. 

“Yes,” Sherlock said. He hesitated. 

_She can have ours_ , he thought. Couldn’t she? 

“I suppose that, if we asked her to stay, she’d say no?” John said – John, who _knew_ him, knew that he would want to keep Tara, knew him and stayed with him and voiced Sherlock’s sentimental thoughts when he couldn’t find the courage. 

“I’m afraid so.” 

John looked up at Sherlock, who was still perched on the edge of the bed. 

“Come here, you,” he said, and Sherlock fell into him before John could do more than raise his arms. 

“I didn’t know what to do,” Sherlock mumbled into his partner’s shoulder. 

“I know, love,” John said, curling his fingers into Sherlock’s hair. 

“I keep thinking she’s _mine_ – ours – but she’s not, and I can’t protect her and I know she doesn’t want to be protected and it hurts,” Sherlock said. 

“We’re going to figure this out,” John promised. “Together.” 

 

Three hours later, they moved back into the sitting room to wait. 

“You can go back and sleep for a bit, if you’d like,” John said as Tara stopped at the bottom of the stairs, startled. 

“I’m all right,” she insisted. 

“No, you’re not,” said John. 

Tara looked at Sherlock, alarm written all over her face.

“We’re not calling anyone,” he assured her. He knew his tone was too quiet, too soft – too different from his usual, brisk manner, but he couldn’t sham, not about this. 

Tara looked back at John. “You’re not happy about it.” 

“I’m a man of my word, and I don’t like to break promises Sherlock’s made, either,” John replied. 

“I appreciate that,” she said. 

“Pass me your mobile,” John said, as planned. After she did so, he added, “I’m adding my number to your contacts.”

Number added, John passed the mobile back to her, and she put it in her pocket. Confusion had replaced the alarm on her face. 

“If you have an emergency, medical or otherwise, I want you to call,” John explained. 

Tara looked to Sherlock, as if for some sort of approval. 

“John will be very unhappy with both of us if you don’t,” Sherlock said. 

“And if there’s ever….” John paused. “If you’re ever in need of a place to stay for a night or two, come here. You’re right that I am less than thrilled about this situation, but it’s more important to me that you have people you can trust in a crisis than anything else.” 

“Thank you,” she said. 

Sherlock read her resolution to never call in the set of her jaw and the hardness in her eyes. 

“Promise,” Sherlock said. “Or else you won’t.” 

Tara’s eyes widened, and Sherlock smiled. 

“I _know_ you,” he told her. 

Of course he knew her. In some odd, twisting way, she was him. His, at the very least. 

“I promise,” she said, and he knew she meant it. 

“Excellent,” John said. “Now, how do you like your eggs?” 

 

_Left a compactible umbrella for T at Maggie’s. MH_

_Thank you. SH_

_T used the umbrella today. She nodded at a camera. MH_

_Very polite. MH_

_She always is. SH_

_Case – urgent – need you to meet T at Angelo’s. 12:30. SH_

_Please. SH_

_Of course. MH_

_Be nice. SH_

_I’m always nice. MH_

_Nice press conference. Love the hat. T_

_Noted. SH_

He gave her a deerstalker at their next lunch. 

It was an essentially useless gift, he knew, but Sherlock also knew that she wouldn’t ask for – much less accept – anything she _really_ needed. 

But this – the deerstalker – was a start. Wasn’t it? 

 

John was having dinner with Harry; Sherlock was conducting a little surveillance of his own, something he wouldn’t trust to anyone else… except for Tara, but that wasn’t an option, because this was a dangerous – 

Merde. 

There were three of them and he was trained in half a dozen martial arts styles but there were three of them and merde merde merde he couldn’t think couldn’t _need John_

Blackness. 

“… John…” 

Someone was beside him, saying John’s name, but not John, someone… someone… his wrist? 

“…John…” 

But if the speaker wasn’t John, then who was it? 

 

“Sherlock… Sherlock?” 

_That_ was John. 

“John,” he rasped. 

Someone – John – lifted a cup of water to his lips. 

“Easy, love, you’re all right.” 

Sherlock struggled to open his eyes – so heavy – and focus on the man beside him. 

John, who hadn’t slept, whose worry was etched around his mouth and eyes, who was still smiling a small, relieved smile, just for Sherlock. 

“You weren’t there,” Sherlock said. 

John’s face sagged. “I know. I’m so – so sorry Sherlock, you should have called, I could have rescheduled with Harry – I wish you had told me…” 

“No,” Sherlock interrupted, his voice still hoarse. “I meant, you weren’t the one who found me. It’s just that – the person who did find me, they were talking to me, and I believe they were saying your name.” 

“Ah,” said John. “Tara found you.” 

Sherlock frowned, but found the expression painful. In fact, he found all expressions – including the seeming lack of one – painful. 

“Your attackers left you in an alley… one whose entrance streets aren’t covered by CCTV, at least not anywhere near the alley entrance. Apparently, Tara has some… game she plays with Mycroft,” John explained. 

“I told her there was no need to avoid the cameras,” Sherlock snapped. How could Mycroft have permitted such a dangerous _game_? London wasn’t a playground. 

“He says she only does it when she knows he knows exactly where she’s meant to end up, on the other side, as it were. And that the rest of the time, she’s more deliberate than ever about making sure the cameras can see her,” John assured him. 

“No more.” 

“We’re all agreed there,” said John. 

“She found me… she called the police?” Sherlock couldn’t imagine Tara calling the police. Not even for him. 

“No,” said John. “She called me.” 

Oh. 

 

Tara was wearing new clothes. 

For half a second, Sherlock couldn’t think of why. Then, he realized her old clothes would have been covered in his blood.

It was an odd realization. 

“My guardian angel,” he greeted her. His voice was still rough. 

“Good morning,” Tara replied, hovering uncertainly near the foot of his bed before Mycroft guided her into a chair. 

“When John gave you his number and told you to call, I believe he imagined it would be used for your emergencies, not mine,” Sherlock said. He tried to smile. He wanted that smile to say ‘thank you’ and ‘now you know calling John isn’t so bad, please call, anytime, for anything.’ He was already so, so tired, but he needed her to know… 

“Yes. Well,” said Tara. 

“You stayed at Mycroft’s last night,” Sherlock decided. A single glance at his brother would have confirmed it just as well, but Sherlock couldn’t spare even that long, not with Tara still here, worried and tired but ultimately safe. With them. 

“I did,” Tara said, and Sherlock’s eyelids fluttered closed. 

The last words he heard before he fell asleep were John thanking Mycroft.

Sherlock supposed he deserved that. 

 

“You need to have me released,” Sherlock insisted for the seventh time in the past hour. 

John raised his eyebrows, frowned, and crossed his arms. 

That would be a ‘no,’ then. 

“All I’m going to do here is lie in this bed and scare the nurses, and I can lie on the sofa just as well at home and the nurses won’t have to deal with me anymore,” Sherlock whined. 

“You’re staying at least through tomorrow evening, likely until sometime Saturday,” John said firmly. 

“John,” Sherlock pleaded. 

“Sherlock.” 

He slumped back against his pillows. “Then someone needs to meet Tara at Angelo’s tomorrow. There’s no reason why all of us need to be subjected to hospital food.” 

“I’ll do it,” John said. At Sherlock’s dubious expression, he added, “She likes you and she’s comfortable with Mycroft. She needs to trust me as well, and not just when she knows I’m a faster conduit to an ambulance than the police.” 

“You’ve never had a problem with convincing people to trust you before,” Sherlock said. 

“None of the rest of them matter if I can’t convince her,” his partner replied. 

 

“Well?” Sherlock demanded, as John entered his hospital room mid-afternoon on Friday. 

“Budge over,” John said, climbing into Sherlock’s narrow bed. 

“How is she?” Sherlock asked once they were situated, Sherlock’s head on John’s chest. 

“Worried about you,” said John. “Pleasantly surprised that I didn’t pester her about getting off the streets. Very entertained by the tales of our more ridiculous cases.” 

“Thank you,” said Sherlock. 

“You’re not the only one who cares about her,” John reminded him. 

“I know,” said Sherlock. “Thank you.” 

 

_Try not to drive John mad during your convalescence. He means well. T_

Sherlock felt unreasonably pleased that Tara had texted. 

_Why does everyone seem to feel sorrier for John? I’m the injured one. SH_

_But noted. We’re planning on a weeklong Doctor Who marathon. SH_

_John says you’re welcome to join us. SH_

John had, in fact, told Sherlock to invite her, but Sherlock wanted her safely in 221B, enthralled – or not – by the adventures of the occupants of a time-travelling blue police box just as much as John did. 

_Busy. T_

_Not after dark, you’re not. SH_

Sherlock always gave her day jobs, or day shifts, at least. 

_At which point I’m busy being to Maggie’s on time, which you should already know. T_

Sherlock did know, but he didn’t want her at Maggie’s: he wanted her on the sofa, eating Chinese takeaway and deducing John’s patients. 

 

_I have solved four cold cases this morning. SH_

Four cold cases whose victims were homeless, to be exact, but Sherlock didn’t mention that. 

No reply.

_John is at Tesco. (We ran out of tea.) SH_

Still no reply. 

_I am fatally bored. SH_

Because he _was_.

_Don’t even say that. T_

Oh. Stupid of him. Sentiment. 

He could imagine John’s reaction: Of course she has sentiment, she’s the one who found you, you berk. 

Or possibly: Sherlock, she’s fifteen and homeless and you’re the only marginally stable, benevolent force in her life, and she found you bleeding out in an alley. We’ve gone over this: death makes people sentimental. 

_Apologies. SH_

_Busy. T_

Sherlock wanted to tell her to forget the job – even though he needed her notes, he really did, especially when he was stuck in the flat – and come home. 

But it was finally – finally – finally Tuesday, which meant he could see her again. 

_Come at seven. John wants to cook you something. SH_

 

Every evening, Mycroft sent him a breakdown of her movements, along with her food intake, where she was sleeping that night, and any other pertinent information. 

Sometimes – if Tara used the umbrella or wore the deerstalker – Mycroft would attach a picture. 

Sherlock never considered their behaviour ‘stalking.’ It was simply long-distance protectiveness, until such a time as a better, more permanent solution could be arranged. 

He played his violin viciously, making the strings wail and screech until even Mrs. Hudson threatened to evict them – or withhold tea, something, Sherlock hadn’t really been paying much attention. 

Sherlock hated holding patterns. 

 

On the second Tuesday of August, Sherlock read Tara’s notes and knew the holding pattern was over. 

Merde. 

“Baker Street,” he said. He stood up, pulling her with him. “Now.” 

He didn’t speak on their way, and she didn’t ask. 

He was the worst long-distance parent in the world. 

“Hello, Tara,” John said as they entered. “Everything all right?” 

No. Everything was most definitely not all right. 

Sherlock slapped the notebook on the coffee table and whirled around. His hands were already tugging at his hair, which was a late-stage frustration event, but this wasn’t late-stage frustration, this was first-stage panic. 

“Sherlock?” John asked. His partner looked at Tara, but she was equally ignorant of how thoroughly stupid Sherlock had been. 

“I’ve had her following Lagrange,” Sherlock snapped. 

“That’s the… smuggling case?” John asked. 

“I was _wrong_.” He stalked to the window. So, so wrong. 

John gaped at him. “About?” 

Sherlock wasn’t supposed to be wrong. Ever. 

Especially not when it concerned Tara. 

“They’re all connected, don’t you see?” he cried. 

“Sherlock,” John said fiercely. “Calm down and tell us what you know.” 

“The smuggling case isn’t just the smuggling case. It’s also the Three Rivers Killer case,” Sherlock said. 

“The serial killer?” John asked. “Lagrange is the serial killer?” 

“Not quite. His accomplice,” Sherlock replied, grimacing. 

“You’ve had her – ” John began, furious. 

“I know, I _know_ ,” Sherlock said, even though he deserved absolutely every scolding John wanted to deliver on the matter, and then some. Turning to Tara, he said, “You’re off Lagrange.” 

Tara crossed her arms, looking mutinous. “You’ll notice that I’m not actually dead.” 

“I’m trying to keep it that way!” Sherlock snapped. 

“Right, then,” Tara said. “I’ll leave you to it.” 

No, no, _no_. 

“What?” John said, as Sherlock said, “Wait.” 

She still needed to eat, to be able to go to Maggie’s. If nothing else – if he couldn’t give her anything else – this, he could still do. 

Sherlock pulled out his wallet, but Tara regarded it with a look that combined dread and despair and possibly something else. 

“I don’t care about the money,” she said. “I just want to help.” 

_I care about you_ , Sherlock thought. 

“I’ll put you on someone else, a different case,” Sherlock said. 

Tara shook her head. 

“You need it,” Sherlock insisted. “Don’t be an idiot.” 

Immediately, he knew it had been the wrong – the worst – thing to say, and he wanted to spin backwards in time, reel in the words – but if he could go back in time, he wouldn’t have put her on this case in the first place. 

Tara wasn’t the idiot. He was. 

He was the one who respected her, who valued her intelligence, who saw the world as she did – and in one sentence, he had negated it all. 

Tara’s cheeks burned. “Like you’re not being an idiot right now. You don’t have enough to take in Lagrange or the Three Rivers Killer yet, so you’ll still need someone on him, but you don’t want that person to be me, even though I’m the best you’ve got. I thought you were a detective. I thought you _solved crimes_ , whatever it took.” 

“Not whatever. Not quite,” Sherlock said, much more calmly. 

The case could and would be solved – but without Tara’s continued involvement. 

“You need to stay here,” John added, and even if now was not exactly the perfect time for such a pronouncement – well, it needed to be said. 

“What?” Muriel gasped. 

“Until the serial killer is caught. It’s not safe,” John said. 

“It’s _London_. It’s never safe,” Tara retorted. 

John scowled, and Sherlock quite agreed with the expression. “It’s less safe at present, especially for you, given that you’ve been following around Lagrange for – how long, Sherlock? A week? Two?” 

Sherlock heard the ice in his voice, and had no doubt about how John had made Captain. Tara had been on the case for eleven days. 

“He hasn’t seen me. Because I’m _good_ ,” Tara insisted. 

She was good, but she was also fifteen and Sherlock hadn’t fully realized whom she was tailing. He couldn’t risk it. He couldn’t risk her. 

“John’s right,” Sherlock said. 

“No.” 

“You should stay,” he said. 

“I am not yours to protect!” Tara shouted, and – this was it, because – 

“Yes, you are,” said Sherlock, and it was true, because wasn’t she? 

Tara began to cry, angry, broken tears streaking down her face. 

Sherlock didn’t know how to fix this – any of it – any of the massive, twisted knot of a situation – but he wished, more than anything, that he did. 

“Tara –” John began. 

“That’s not even my _name_ ,” she interrupted harshly, still crying. “It’s Muriel. Good luck catching your killer.” 

Tara – Muriel – ran out of the flat. Before either of them could move, Sherlock heard the crash as she slammed the door to 221 behind her. 

Merde. 

“Mycroft,” John said at once. Sherlock was already pulling out his mobile. 

“What is it, brother dear?” his brother answered after a single ring. 

“Tara – Muriel, actually – ran out. She was following Lagrange, and I didn’t know he was the Three Rivers Killer’s accomplice but he is and – we had a fight. We argued, she left, you have to find her, it isn’t safe,” Sherlock said in a single breath, which really was not helpful in the least. 

“Of course,” Mycroft said, then sighed, “Oh, Sherlock.” 

“Shut up,” Sherlock said. “Find her. I don’t care if Eastern Europe falls to Stalin or Bismarck conquers Africa or Genghis Kahn destroys Jerusalem because you’re distracted, _find her_.” 

“Your grasp of current affairs is woefully out-dated, little brother,” Mycroft replied, but he did so in the utterly casual voice he reserved for when he was thinking hard, so Sherlock didn’t object.

Sherlock would learn who the bloody Prime Minister was if Mycroft could find Muriel. 

“She’s avoiding cameras like the plague, but she still has her mobile on,” Mycroft announced a moment later. 

“That’s not going to last long,” Sherlock said grimly. “I expect she’ll throw it in the Thames as soon as she remembers.” 

“Your argument went that poorly?” Mycroft asked. 

Sherlock pressed the speakerphone button and threw his mobile onto the sofa. 

“Yes, the argument went that badly,” he snapped. 

“Do you think it’s wise to confront her right now?” John asked, moving toward him so Mycroft could hear. 

“I think if we don’t find her now, we won’t have another chance for days,” Sherlock said. 

“With a serial killer potentially searching for her as well, her safety – not, perhaps, her goodwill – must be our priority,” said Mycroft. 

“Send her coordinates to my phone,” Sherlock instructed. 

“We’re going to work through this,” John assured him. 

Sherlock knew better, though. He had gotten lucky with John. He couldn’t count on luck twice. 

 

Fifteen minutes later – before they had driven even reasonably close, thanks to Muriel’s uncanny ability to choose a path that a vehicle would have a difficult time following – they lost the signal from her mobile. 

Merde merde _merde_. 

_Continuing on to last known location. SH_

Even as he sent the text to Mycroft, he knew their visit would be pointless. Everything that made Muriel an ideal Network consultant – everything that enabled her to live on the streets – would render her invisible to them. 

 

Two hours after Muriel had first left – Sherlock could almost feel the continued reverberation of the slammed doors – he and John were back at the flat. 

John was slumped into his armchair, head in his hands, thinking.

Sherlock was pacing in front of the window, flipping his mobile in his hand.

His mobile.

Which rang. 

_Tara_ , the screen read. 

“John,” he gasped, answering the call immediately. “Muriel?” 

No reply, just a faint scuffling sound, as if fabric were rubbing against the mobile’s speaker. 

John scrambled for his own mobile and called Mycroft. 

“Muriel?” Sherlock whispered, pressing the speakerphone button so John could hear – if there was, indeed, anything to hear. 

“Muriel called. Track, _now_ ,” John hissed to Mycroft. 

Then, from Sherlock’s mobile – a voice – male: “Hands where I can see them.” 

Merdemerdemerde. 

“What’re you doing here?” the voice continued. 

Sherlock knew that voice. 

Lagrange. 

“Looking for Annabelle,” Muriel replied, her voice steady but higher pitched than usual. 

Sherlock didn’t need to know exactly who Annabelle was to understand that she was – or soon would be – the Three Rivers Killer’s latest victim. And Muriel had walked straight into the kidnapping.

Had she known, when she went looking for Annabelle? 

Was this her way of proving to Sherlock and John that she didn’t need their protection, by finding them the killer from which they desired to shield her? 

_Please, no_ , Sherlock thought. 

“Turn around,” commanded Lagrange. 

More scuffling sounds. 

This was the worst. Hearing, but not seeing, not _knowing_ , stuck in a useless space-time location – 

“A mobile, you little bitch?” 

The line went dead. 

Sherlock threw his phone across the room. 

“Mycroft,” John said into his own phone. “Did you get it? Did you find her?” 

Pause. 

“Not quite,” Mycroft replied. “I narrowed it down to a reasonable search area but – I’ll send Sherlock the schematics so he can prioritize blocks or buildings.” 

“Thank you,” said John. 

Sherlock opened his laptop and waited. 

 

“We should have put trackers on her bag,” Sherlock snapped after another two hours of fruitless searching. “Then we would know where she was even if she _had_ tossed the mobile in the Thames.” 

“I’ll make a note of it,” Mycroft said from his position across from Sherlock in the car they were using as a mobile headquarters. 

Sherlock glared at his brother. 

Mycroft’s promise of a future _note_ was useless unless they found her in the present. 

 

“Well?” Sherlock demanded. 

Nothing. 

Everyone was useless. 

He was useless. 

 

“John…” 

“I know, love.” 

 

Finally – finally – finally – 

“They’re in the old paint factory.” 

“Move in, now,” Mycroft ordered. 

 

Abandoned factories were bloody large. 

John was in front of him, holding his gun between steady hands as they rapidly moved through the building. 

Miracle of all miracles: somewhere ahead of them in the dark, footsteps, two pairs. 

One belonged to Muriel, although they were heavier than usual – she was carrying something – no, likely someone – Annabelle – the girl she’d gone searching for in the first place. 

Sherlock caught a glimpse of the trio, running, always half a turn ahead, Lagrange pulling Muriel along, Muriel stumbling beneath the weight of the girl in her arms, and he wanted to shout for them to stop but he didn’t want Lagrange to decide he only needed one hostage… 

But they were so, so close.

It was inconceivable that any harm could befall her now. Sherlock and John were _right there._

 _We’re almost there_ , he thought, as if to Muriel. _Slow down, darling._

Muriel, of course, could do better than that: she tripped Lagrange, sent them crashing to the hard floor, tumbling into a messy, desperate struggle, and they lost track of Lagrange’s gun and Annabelle was screaming and Lagrange had an arm pressing down over Muriel’s throat but Sherlock and John had finally – finally – finally caught up – 

“Let her go.” John, walking slowly toward them, gun pointed at Lagrange. 

Lagrange didn’t even glance up. 

“Let her go, or I swear to God I will shoot you, right now,” John said, stepping closer. 

Lagrange hesitated, loosened his grip a fraction of an inch, and John closed the remaining gap between them, wrenching him off of Muriel and shoving him against the ground, holding Lagrange’s arms with one hand, pressing the gun against his back with another. 

Sherlock was an instant behind him, pulling Muriel away from Lagrange and toward him, into him, and she was gasping for breath but she was breathing, she was breathing, she was alive and with them… 

“Muriel,” he said. “Muriel. Are you all right?” 

She nodded, but her eyes were still squeezed shut.

“Muriel,” Sherlock repeated, because this was important. “Look at me. Are you hurt?” 

Muriel opened her eyes, looked at him, looked at Lestrade, cuffing Lagrange, looked at Donovan, hugging Annabelle, looked back at Sherlock. 

“You got my call,” she said, coughing. 

_Oh, my God._

She didn’t know – she hadn’t known he had answered – she didn’t know they were coming – 

“Of course I did. Of course,” he murmured. Always. Sherlock turned his head toward the small army of police officers combing through the scene. “She needs water. Someone get me water!” 

“I’m really sorry,” she whispered, which was absurd, Sherlock was supposed to be the adult in the equation, he was the one who wasn’t supposed to make mistakes, especially not mistakes that ended up involving serial killers and their accomplices. 

“Shut up,” Sherlock said, hugging her. 

Muriel started to laugh, which Sherlock decided was either the shock or a Good Thing. 

“Here,” said John, kneeling next to them. He handed her a bottle of water, which she proceeded to gulp quickly enough to draw the attention of an overeager paramedic. “Easy now.” 

Sherlock glared away the doctor. 

Muriel already had one, after all. 

Donovan joined their huddled trio, Annabelle in her arms. 

“She says her mum’s name is Kate, but she doesn’t know their address. Do you know her?” she asked Muriel. 

Muriel described a gathering place where Kate could be found; Sherlock deduced it was a homeless watering hole, and that Kate had asked for Muriel’s assistance in locating Annabelle. 

Donovan thanked her, handed Annabelle to the hovering paramedic, and repeated the location Muriel had described before kneeling again. The sergeant regarded them with disbelieving eyes: Sherlock’s arm around Muriel’s shoulders, John examining the rope burns on her wrists. 

If Sherlock hadn’t thought that Mycroft would arrange it, he would murder Lagrange himself.

“Hey there,” Donovan said to Muriel. “I’m Sergeant Sally Donovan. You’re safe now.” 

“She knows that.” Sherlock rolled his eyes. 

“You’ve been really brave tonight, and thanks again for helping us out with finding Annabelle’s mum,” Donovan said, which Sherlock supposed was acceptable, because Muriel had been brave. She was like John, in that way. John would have gone after Annabelle, too. 

Muriel nodded. 

“If you give us your parents’ numbers, we can call them and have them pick you up at the hospital.” Donovan smiled, but Sherlock looked to John, panicked. 

“That won’t be necessary,” Sherlock said swiftly, as his doctor nodded. 

Muriel closed her eyes. 

Why? 

What did she predict Sherlock would say, and what didn’t she want to see? 

“Excuse me?” Donovan said. “This girl has just been kidnapped. We need to contact her parents.” 

_Muriel did that herself, hours ago_ , Sherlock thought. 

“Yes,” said Sherlock. “But we’re already here.” 

“What?” asked Donovan, stupidly, because wasn’t it obvious? 

“John and I are already here. _We_ are her parents, so you don’t need to call us,” Sherlock declared. 

“I don’t understand,” said Donovan. 

“Sherlock and I adopted her,” John explained. “She’s our daughter. No calls necessary.” 

Over Muriel’s head, Sherlock beamed at his partner. 

“I have copies of the paperwork with me, if you’d care to look, Sergeant,” said Mycroft, appearing behind John. 

“Yes,” said Sherlock, forcing himself to keep his voice light. “Look, Muriel, Uncle Mycroft is here with _bureaucracy_.” 

If Mycroft didn’t appreciate the ‘uncle’ label, he could – oh. But he did. Look at that _face_.

“I dunno what he did with my bag… so I’ve lost my umbrella,” Muriel said to Mycroft. 

“Not a problem,” Mycroft said. “Umbrellas are easily replaced. Nieces, less so.” 

Sherlock resolved to do something nice for Mycroft, which was an appalling decision, but a necessary one. 

Muriel looked at John, who nodded reassuringly. 

“I can’t believe you didn’t _say_ anything,” Donovan complained. “You went and _adopted a child_ and didn’t tell anyone, who does that?” 

_People whose children do not wish to be adopted_ , Sherlock thought. _People whose children have just been rescued from serial killers._

“When did you adopt her, anyway?” Donovan questioned. 

“Recently,” said Sherlock, eliciting a wide grin from Muriel, which Sherlock counted as a victory. 

“Recently,” Donovan repeated, before realizing – “ _Oh_. She’s your Tuesday-Friday, isn’t she?” 

“Yes,” said Sherlock. 

“You could have said something,” Donovan said, her voice becoming much gentler than before. “You could have said, ‘Sally, I’d love to fill out paperwork, but I’ve a meeting with a social worker about my daughter and need to dash.’ You could have said, ‘Normally I stick around for the arrests, but it’s midday on Friday and my daughter is expecting me.’” 

_She wasn’t really my daughter then, and she never would have been if I had told a member of the police that I was meeting a homeless teenager twice a week on the pretext of acquiring her observations of the suspect of my latest case_ , Sherlock replied silently. 

“I… didn’t expect you to understand,” Sherlock said. 

Donovan looked at Muriel. “Your father’s a bit of an idiot.” 

“Isn’t everyone?” Muriel said. “Besides, he’s brilliant most of the time, so I think he gets a pass on this.” 

She forgave him? 

“No,” Sherlock whispered to her. “Not on this.” 

Lestrade returned, standing closer to Mycroft than was strictly necessary, but not close enough to be deemed unprofessional. Sherlock, having just adopted a teenager at a crime scene, wanted to tell the D.I. to get over himself and hold the interfering, umbrella-worshipping bureaucrat’s hand already. 

Donovan turned to Lestrade. “Did you know that Sherlock and John adopted a kid?” 

Lestrade looked at Muriel, though Sherlock wasn’t quite sure why – but – of course – they’d met the night of Sherlock’s attack. “I had some idea.” 

“We’ve got another genius in the family now,” said John. “I’m outnumbered and deliriously happy about it.” 

From the little Sherlock could see of Muriel’s face, she looked dubious. They could fix that, later. As soon as they settled this, officially and explicitly, John would indeed be deliriously happy. 

“You’re not also secretly married, are you?” Donovan put her hands on her hips. 

“What? No,” said John. 

“What could possibly lead you to conclude that?” wondered Sherlock. 

“You’ve done it backwards, you know,” Donovan explained, but she was smiling her bemused, ‘aren’t you two a mad, precious mess’ smile. “You realize that most people go about it in a different order.”

“Sherlock and John aren’t most people,” Muriel said. “They’re better.” 

Sherlock felt giddy. He thought so, too, but he appreciated Muriel’s assessment. 

“What order?” Sherlock asked Donovan. 

“Normally, when people plan on having children together – and adoption definitely counts, I’m actually impressed you had the patience to go through the process – they get married first,” said Donovan. 

“Oh,” said Sherlock.

Oh. 

Well, they could do that, too. 

He let go of Muriel and turned toward John. “John?”

“Oh, God, yes,” John replied, reaching for him and kissing him thoroughly but really quite briefly, considering they had just become affianced, which as far as Sherlock could tell, was supposed to be a Big Deal. 

Perhaps he would have to propose again, under circumstances in which John would feel it appropriate to kiss him for a properly lengthy amount of time. 

Sherlock found this idea acceptable, and relinquished John without a struggle. 

“Did they just get engaged at a crime scene?” asked Donovan, looking scandalized and glancing between Lestrade and Muriel – as if _they_ were going to agree with her. 

“Brilliant, isn’t it?” Muriel replied, sharing a grin with Lestrade.

“I quite agree with Muriel,” Sherlock said. 

“Mummy will be so pleased,” Mycroft interjected unnecessarily. Sherlock rolled his eyes again. 

“Knowing the two of you, I suppose it wouldn’t have happened anywhere else,” Donovan sighed. 

Obviously. 

“Quite right,” said Sherlock. “Muriel, you’ll be in the wedding party, of course?” 

“I – oh,” said Muriel, sounding surprised. “Yes?” 

“Excellent,” said John. He stood and helped Muriel up. 

“We’re done here,” Sherlock decided. “We’re taking Muriel home.” 

Finally. 

In the car – long and black and Mycroft-supplied but safe – Muriel leaned against Sherlock and closed her eyes, which Sherlock instantly recognized as her not-thinking defence. 

“Muriel,” Sherlock said, before she could not-think for too long. “Say yes.” 

She looked at him, then at John. 

“We have already,” John said. “Weeks ago.” 

“The thought of you continuing to be unsafe, of you failing to be surrounded by people who _know_ you and would do anything for you – is no longer acceptable,” Sherlock informed her. 

Indeed, her constant state of danger hadn’t been acceptable for quite some time. The lack of acceptability, however, had itself outgrown its acceptability. 

“And if it’s not with us, then we will read a file on every family in England until we find one you want,” John said. 

Sherlock would help, of course, even though it would not-quite-literally kill him to see her with another family. 

But if she were safe… and happy… and understood… and loved…? 

But she wouldn’t find any of those things in greater abundance than she would find with them in 221B. And at occasional crime scenes. And St. Bart’s labs. 

Muriel was thinking now, _over_ thinking, a phenomenon which with Sherlock was quite familiar, at least when it came to relationships. 

“When I told you that you were right, that no one would want someone has brilliant as you if you didn’t belong to them biologically – I only said that because I didn’t think you would want me to say that I would,” Sherlock said. “That we would. I wanted to continue to have an excuse to see you, to worry about you, and I knew you wouldn’t permit that if you thought I was pushing for something else. I am never going to grow bored with have you around, and John will be all the happier for having twice as much brilliance in his life.” 

“Please,” added John. 

_Please_ , Sherlock repeated silently. 

“Sherlock has been composing mournful, angry violin pieces for weeks and I can’t bear it any longer,” John continued. 

“You compose?” asked Muriel, latching onto the one piece of completely irrelevant information – not that Sherlock could wholly blame her, he was willing to take any amount of curiosity or positive engagement at this point. 

“Yes. Rarely, but yes. I’ll write something for you if you stay,” he all but pleaded. “And while we’re on the subject, John has been extremely displeased with me for ages, so really, to ensure our domestic stability, you must say yes.” 

John squeezed his hand. 

Sherlock supposed that, displeasure notwithstanding, they had just become engaged. 

“Mrs. Hudson will love you,” John said. 

“Our housekeeper, although she pretends she is merely our landlady,” Sherlock explained. “She’ll bring you tea and biscuits whenever you like and often even when you don’t.” 

_John will make you tea, too_ , he thought. _I will memorize your preferences and avoid using your favourite kind in experiments. Promise._

“What does Mycroft think?” Muriel wondered. 

Sherlock repressed a sigh. 

“Mycroft thinks we are all idiots. For waiting until now, that is,” he said. “He finds you vastly interesting and would take you himself if we didn’t have the prior claim – and if he weren’t so incredibly unfit for parenthood.” 

Unclehood, on the other hand, inasmuch as said position consisted of the ability to manipulate government resources to find and secure nieces – well, Sherlock could give his brother that much.

“He made me eggs,” Muriel said, her tone sly and teasing enough to permit Sherlock that most desperate of feelings, hope. 

Sherlock sent John a dark look. “It is your job to exceed Mycroft in all areas of domesticity.” 

Sherlock should never have permitted himself to be attacked, because if he hadn’t been attacked, then Muriel wouldn’t have had to find him and Mycroft wouldn’t have had to take her home and _cook_ for her, when John – and Mrs. Hudson – were clearly the only people allowed to do that. 

Although, Sherlock had to admit, better Mycroft’s house than Maggie’s, any night, for any reason. 

“Mycroft prefers swooping in unexpectedly, anyway,” Muriel informed him, as if Mycroft hadn’t been doing the same thing to him since his earliest memories, and likely before.

“I am aware,” Sherlock replied. 

The car deposited them outside of 221. 

John fumbled through his pockets for the key – honestly, sometimes Sherlock wanted to simply pick the lock and spare him the bother – and Muriel scrutinized the door, no doubt recalling the fiasco that had led to her flight the night before. 

“It doesn’t matter,” Sherlock said. “If anyone is at fault for our last conversation, it is I.” 

Mrs. Hudson pulled open the door before John could do more than fit the key into the lock. 

“Boys!” she scolded, and Sherlock knew instantly that Mycroft had sent a handful of employees to prepare the flat for Muriel’s imminent arrival. “Mycroft has had people going through your flat, rearranging furniture, by the sound of it. Woke me up in the middle of the night, it did.” 

“Apologies, Mrs. Hudson,” Sherlock said, clearing his throat. 

Mrs. Hudson regarded Muriel. Sherlock had never been more thankful for her impossibly, unalterably kind face. 

“Hullo, dear,” their landlady/secret housekeeper said. “Between the two of us, it looks as if you’ve had the worse night.” 

Which was true, because Muriel appeared pale and bruised and very, very tired. 

Despite this, Muriel smiled. “It’s very nice to meet you, Mrs. Hudson, and I’m afraid the furniture moving was likely my fault. I’m Muriel.”

She stopped, and the moment dragged into infinity, and even though Sherlock knew how time worked, clearly Muriel had the power to subvert the fundamental laws of the universe. 

She met his gaze, and Sherlock knew what she was about to announce, but it wasn’t enough to know, it wasn’t enough to see John’s grin and know that John knew, he needed her to say it. 

Muriel looked back at Mrs. Hudson. “I’m their daughter.” 

 

Lagrange – having really only signed up for smuggling, and not the serial killing – gave up his boss after very little persuasion. 

Still, Sherlock refused to attend the press conference announcing the capture of the Three Rivers Killer. He had more pressing concerns on the home front – namely, memorizing Muriel as she fell asleep on the sofa while he played the violin, as she sat on the worktop, sipping the tea that John had made for her, as she selected a new umbrella out of the dozen Mycroft had sent for her to sample. 

 

On Saturday morning, Muriel regarded Sherlock seriously over toast and said, “Who am I following around today?” 

John set his tea down with the forced precision of one who otherwise would have smashed the cup. 

“No one,” John and Sherlock said together. 

Muriel frowned. “I didn’t say _what serial killer_ am I following around today.” 

“Same answer,” Sherlock replied. 

“Muriel,” John began, “You know we _adopted_ you. You’re not here to be a live-in member of the Network for our convenience.” 

Her frown deepened. “But you don’t want me watching at all?” 

“No,” they both said. 

Sherlock very much hoped this conversation did not turn into a repeat of The Fight – though he didn’t quite see how it could, given that surely even Muriel would acknowledge that she was, indeed, theirs to protect now. 

Muriel focused on Sherlock. “But I’m useful.” 

“Your purpose isn’t to be useful to Scotland Yard,” Sherlock replied. “Your purpose is to eat Mrs. Hudson’s biscuits and watch Doctor Who with John while I run experiments on thumbs.” 

“I thought you had index fingers in the fridge,” Muriel said. 

Sherlock waved a hand. “I was attempting to speak generally. Apologies.” 

John, still watching Muriel solemnly, had yet to pick up his tea again. 

“Can I at least help you on your cases? Not the surveillance, but the other parts?” Muriel asked. 

Sherlock looked at John. 

“Secured crime scenes, Scotland Yard, and St. Bart’s only. Absolutely no stake-outs,” John said, his voice firm. “And you’ll stay here – or with Mycroft, I guess, we’ll have to talk to him about this – if we’re going to be out all night.” 

Muriel rolled her eyes. “I’ve been out all night before.” 

“Yes,” said John. “No more.” 

“We won’t have to talk to Mycroft,” Sherlock added. “He’ll send a car to Muriel and a smug text to me.” 

Muriel – his daughter, Sherlock could think that now, because it was finally – finally – finally true in all relevant sense of the word – grinned. 

“We’ve really made it too easy on him, you know,” she said. “You two, Greg, me, all in the same place when there’s a case – masterful consolidation on his part.” 

John snorted, but Sherlock was suddenly too distracted – or rather, too focused on a different subject – to make a jab about Mycroft’s laziness. 

“No more CCTV game,” he instructed. “Not even now that you’re here.” 

“I know,” Muriel said. “It was fun though.” 

Sherlock waited. 

“Yes,” Muriel sighed. “No more. I know. You’re going to know where I am all the time and it’s going to be very boring.” 

John chuckled. “Oh, I doubt that very much,” he said, glancing at Sherlock. “We’re all mad here, you know.” 

Muriel leaned back her chair, a delighted smile on her lips and something possessive in her eyes. “I know,” she agreed.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> "We're all mad here" is from Alice's Adventures in Wonderland. 
> 
> Current plan:  
> Chapter Three - Mycroft  
> Chapter Four - John
> 
> They'll be shorter than the Muriel and Sherlock chapters.


	3. Chapter 3

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> What Mycroft knows.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> As promised (threatened?) (announced), this chapter is shorter than the Muriel/Sherlock chapters... but considerably longer than I thought it would be. Because Mystrade.

Contrary to popular – that was, Watsonian and Sherlockian – belief, Mycroft did not spend his days tracking Sherlock’s movements via CCTV and running background checks on each and every individual with whom Sherlock came into contact. 

To be sure, Sherlock and his partner were under active surveillance and the universal background checks had been a part of the pre-John era – but on the whole, a simple status report at the end of each day was all Mycroft read. 

Thankfully, it was also all Mycroft needed. John kept Sherlock about as safe as could be hoped for, and then a little beyond. Mycroft expressed his gratitude by removing all surveillance from their flat, and everyone was satisfied. 

None of this grudging trust, of course, stopped Mycroft from being _curious_. Curiosity was practically the Holmes motto. Once upon a time, aloofness had rivalled curiosity for the Holmes motto – for him and Sherlock, at least – but John’s entrance into Sherlock’s life had disproven that rather thoroughly. 

_Caring is not an advantage_ , but Mycroft accepted that there existed exceptions to every rule – or, at least, people one couldn’t help but care for, despite the disadvantages it entailed.

John was Sherlock’s exception. 

Sherlock was Mycroft’s. 

And if Sherlock ever insinuated that his role as chief protector had been supplanted, that Mycroft ought to find an identity and a purpose outside of playing voyeur to his younger brother’s colourful exploits… 

Mycroft had quite enough on his plate without jumping down that rabbit hole as well. 

 

Unfortunately, Holmeses were also well known for being unable to resist problems, especially insurmountable ones, such as how to properly handle one’s increasing fascination with a certain colleague of one’s younger brother and what to do about the appreciative glances one was _almost_ certain said colleague bestowed upon oneself whenever one found oneself at said colleague’s crime scenes or press conferences – all for purely official or otherwise brotherly reasons, naturally. 

 

“With all of the middle-of-the-night chases my brother sends you on, your department really ought to consider investing in better coffee,” Mycroft remarked one dawn in early June. 

Lestrade barked out a laugh and lifted his coffee cup in salute. “Yeah. I’m sure that’s high on the budgeting committee’s list of priorities.” 

The pair of them stood in silence for a moment, Lestrade apparently deep in contemplation as he scrutinized his mediocre cup. Mycroft fiddled with his umbrella. 

The D.I. looked up and met his gaze. “Or you could buy me a coffee.” 

Mycroft’s brain jolted to a dead stop. “I’m sure I could arrange for a new machine –” he began, startled. 

“No,” Lestrade interrupted. “We could go out for coffee, right now. God knows neither of us is going get any sleep, anyway.” 

Mycroft stared. 

“You can buy me something that’s obscenely good and very expensive, and I can attempt to amuse you with stories of cases your brother wasn’t on – although, come to think of it, Sherlock only refuses the boring ones, so maybe – ”

“Yes,” Mycroft said. 

 

Two nights later, they met for dinner. 

 

There was very little that Mycroft did not know how to do, or, perhaps more accurately, very little that Mycroft wished to know how to do or would find useful to know how to do and still could not accomplish. 

But – and here, Mycroft forced himself to be ruthlessly honest – he did not know how to go about seducing Greg, rather than send him fleeing as the police officer at last came to terms with Mycroft’s hectic schedule and painful awkwardness and complete lack of experience not only in romantic relationships, but in non-work relationships in general. Not to mention the fact that Mycroft was hyper-aware of his own poshness – namely because said poshness enabled him to conduct his job with the least amount of disagreement from everyone else in the world – while Greg was more than comfortable with his own middle-class station – and what did one _do_ with that combination? Furthermore, if one wanted to be thorough – and Mycroft always wanted to be thorough – Greg was _attractive_ , and Mycroft believed that the less that was said about his own physical appearance, the better. 

Mycroft had progressed to ‘Greg’ during their first coffee, but every dinner, every text, made him wonder when the Detective Inspector would inform Mycroft that he was too uptight and, while the fling had been moderately entertaining, he would prefer that Mycroft revert to ‘Lestrade’ and attempt to limit his crime scene visits. 

 

Mycroft was the second-foremost expert in the enigma commonly known as Sherlock Holmes, and he had long prided himself on his knowledge of Sherlock’s habits, tics, and preferences.

While on a case or otherwise deeply absorbed in an intellectual puzzle, Sherlock ate the bare minimum that would satisfy John and permit basic brain functioning, and although he and John indulged in Chinese takeaway and rich Italian dinners far too often to really be considered healthy for men of their age, Sherlock otherwise held no interest for the niceties of social eating. Molly and Greg were undoubtedly his friends – and John had woken him up enough to realize this fact himself – but Sherlock never met them for coffee or lunch or drinks. For his part, Mycroft certainly didn’t mind that Sherlock did not feature as yet another scheduling impediment in the constant battle to find mutually agreeable times during which to meet with Greg. 

All of which meant that when, according to Mycroft’s sources, Sherlock not only met a member of his Homeless Network at Angelo’s, but actually ate with said member, Mycroft was intrigued. 

 

After the second lunch, Mycroft was more than intrigued, but his research turned up maddeningly little about the teenager with whom Sherlock was meeting. 

She was fifteen, had been homeless for roughly seven months, regularly paid a widow named Margaret Walker (no criminal record) to permit her to sleep in said widow’s flat, and by all accounts was very bright. Certainly she conducted Sherlock’s surveillance with a level of skill that would make many of Mycroft’s own agents jealous. 

She was known as Tara on the streets, but Mycroft knew this was a lie. He could not determine what school she had attended, and thus had no way of determining her real name and, by extension, the course of events that had driven her to homelessness in the first place. 

Mycroft was fairly certain that she posed no threat to Sherlock, but he was curious, and he believed in indulging his own curiosity. 

 

Tara, as Mycroft had conceding to calling her, picked up the fourth phone. 

“What do you want?” she asked immediately, all directness and no fear. 

“Merely a simple conversation, I assure you,” Mycroft said. 

“About?” she demanded. 

“Oh, I think you know. You’re a smart girl. He wouldn’t hire you otherwise, would he?” Mycroft replied. 

On his laptop screen, Mycroft saw Tara pull out her mobile, likely to call Sherlock. That wouldn’t do. 

“Let’s leave this between us for now, shall we?” Mycroft said. He was under no illusions that Sherlock wouldn’t find out about the rendezvous – indeed, he planned on informing his brother himself – but if Sherlock were alerted now, there would likely be no rendezvous of which to speak. “There’s a car waiting for you.” 

The car stopped, Mycroft’s driver opened the door to the backseat, and Tara clambered in. She looked exactly the same as she had on the cameras – obviously – but it was still somehow _different_ , seeing her in the flesh. 

“Good evening,” Mycroft greeted her. 

“’Evening,” Tara replied. “Who are you?” 

“An interested party.” Mycroft tried not to smile. 

“In Sherlock,” she stated, her voice flat. 

“And, since Sherlock is interested in you…” Mycroft trailed off. 

Tara waited, not taking the bait. 

“Do you plan to continue your association with Sherlock Holmes?” he asked. 

“I could be wrong, but I think that’s none of your business,” she said in a firm tone. 

“It could be.” Mycroft leaned back a bit into the seat. 

“It really couldn’t,” Tara insisted. 

“Trust is not a luxury in which most homeless teenagers choose to indulge,” Mycroft said, because he truly was curious about the relationship. 

Tara and Sherlock made an odd pair. To be fair, Sherlock and _anyone_ made an odd pair, but Tara was a bizarre choice, even for his brother. On the whole, Sherlock had very clear boundaries regarding his Network. As Sherlock thought of them as part of the Work – which they were – the mantra of indifference extended to them. 

Yet it was hard to be indifferent to a clever, vulnerable teenager. 

“Who says I trust him?” she parried. 

Mycroft smiled. “Two lunches at Angelo’s.” 

Tara shrugged. “Free meals.” 

“Two lunches at Angelo’s, at which Sherlock _ate_.” 

“Maybe he was hungry,” she suggested in a tone of voice so coolly aloof, Mycroft wanted to induct her into the Holmes family on the spot. 

He couldn’t think of how to reply, because there were so many things he wanted to say, to ask. 

“You’re a relative,” Tara announced. “Older brother, probably.” 

“Very good,” Mycroft said, impressed even though he knew Sherlock wouldn’t deign to care for an idiot – and Sherlock most definitely cared for this girl. “That explains it quite nicely.” 

“I’m useful to him,” Tara said indifferently. “I’m useful, he pays me. End of story.” 

Mycroft shook his head, slowly but very sure of himself. “I’m afraid that, with Sherlock, it’s never quite that simple.” 

“On the contrary,” Tara said, “Sherlock keeps everything remarkably simple.” 

_To keep you_ , Mycroft realized. 

Sherlock would feign indifference in order to continue his association with her – an association that Tara would walk away from, Mycroft had no doubt, if she felt that Sherlock were attempting to control or manipulate her. 

The car stopped outside of Margaret Walker’s flat, precisely as Mycroft had instructed, and the driver opened the door. 

“It was very nice to meet you,” Mycroft said sincerely. 

Tara ignored him and ducked out of the car; Mycroft followed. 

His eyes narrowed, he examined the neighbourhood – which had precisely nothing to recommend it – and swung his umbrella casually. 

Mycroft almost never walked places, and every building he entered had staff on hand to whisk visitors from dry cars to dry entryways, but he permitted himself one eccentricity, and this was it. Besides, a simple eccentricity – such as a black umbrella – made one mysterious, and that was a trait that rarely let him down. 

“Do you have an umbrella?” he asked her, as she waited for him to speak and he realized that she, unlike him, might actually have need of one. 

“Is that some sort of code?” Tara asked, which Mycroft thought was a rather good answer, however erroneous the assumption.

“No,” Mycroft replied at once. “I truly mean to ask if you own an umbrella.” He tapped his against the pavement for emphasis. 

“No,” she said. 

Mycroft very rarely acted on impulse. In his experience, impulsive decisions never led to lasting, positive results. 

But: Tara was achingly young and achingly intelligent and achingly alone and she was so close to what Sherlock might have been…

He thrust his umbrella toward her. 

“Take it,” he said. 

She didn’t. 

“You spend most of your days conducting surveillance, much of it outside. We’re in London; it rains frequently. You’ll stay drier,” he said. He wasn’t pleading, of course; he was stating facts. 

“It’s awkward to manoeuvre with,” Tara said, eyeing the umbrella as if it might bite her. 

“Oh. Of course,” Mycroft agreed. 

He didn’t leave, though. Somehow, he couldn’t. He couldn’t leave her, here, alone, not when he knew how much she meant to Sherlock – even if Tara didn’t know it yet. 

“May I go?” she asked eventually. 

“Of course,” he said, startled. 

She walked toward the flat. 

Mycroft returned to the car and ordered the driver to take him home. Then he texted Sherlock.

 

_Interesting new recruit. MH_

_Leave her alone. SH_

Mycroft had judged the situation correctly: Sherlock would never react with such a strong protective instinct had Mycroft contacted him about an ordinary Network member. 

_No need to worry. Safely arrived at Maggie’s. MH_

He added the location to his surveillance list; ensuring that Tara continued to arrive there safely – at least on the nights when Maggie’s was indeed her intended destination – was the least he could do. 

_Does John know you have a fifteen-year-old on your payroll? MH_

It was a tad unfair of him, perhaps, but Mycroft couldn’t fathom that John Watson, doctor and war hero, would find the situation acceptable. 

_Stay out of this. SH_

Mycroft was hardly going to follow such a ridiculous instruction – for goodness’ sake, he could be _useful_ to Sherlock – so he sent his brother his file on Margaret Walker, just to prove his point. 

 

Mycroft never turned his mobile off. He had expected this insistence to bother Greg, but since Greg only rarely turned his own off, it wasn’t an issue. 

Their commitment to Queen and country was, however, occasionally – that was, often – an inconvenience, such as now, a Tuesday evening in which Greg didn’t have a case and Mycroft’s call with the Chinese had been cancelled – and his mobile chimed with the special trill reserved for Sherlock. 

Mycroft swore. 

“What is it today?” Greg asked, leaning in to kiss Mycroft’s shoulder even as he permitted his lover to reach for his mobile. 

“Kinyarwanda,” Mycroft murmured absently. 

_Where is she? SH_

Mycroft swore again and fumbled for his laptop, even as he sent his reply. 

_Who? MH_

_Now is not the time. Where is she? SH_

Mycroft hastily scanned his report but – nothing. It was a Tuesday evening; she was supposed to be with Sherlock. He started to work backwards, finding her last known location – but it would take a minute, likely several – Sherlock would have to be patient – 

_Unsure. We do not have CCTV everywhere, much less on the side streets of the areas she is most likely to frequent. MH_

“Is Sherlock all right?” Greg asked. He knew the text tone. 

_Fix that. SH_

Mycroft knew he had rather more power that most people would feel comfortable with, and normally Sherlock agreed – though perhaps for different reasons – but he also knew that Sherlock grew irritated when forced to confront the fact that Mycroft was not, in fact, omnipotent. 

“Yes,” Mycroft replied, flipping through the CCTV feeds furiously. “Mostly. I simply need to – give me ten minutes. It _is_ important, I swear.” 

Greg fell back into the pillows. “Your brother owes me half a dozen shags at this point.” 

Mycroft quirked an eyebrow at him. “I hope you’re not planning on collecting from him.” 

“Christ, no,” Greg said, nudging Mycroft with a playful foot. “But I am thinking about making him do paperwork, and not just when he decides to go through cold cases on a whim.” 

Mycroft looked up at him briefly. “Sherlock did paperwork?” 

Greg shrugged. “Month or so ago? Turned up in this weird manic sulk, solved a bunch of domestic abuse cases, which he normally doesn’t touch, did the paperwork, left.” 

_Tara_ , Mycroft knew. Something had happened to Tara – she’d been hurt – and Sherlock had reacted the only way he could. 

“Hmm,” Mycroft said, and – at last – found Sherlock’s missing consultant. 

She’d been in a small confrontation, her wrist was sprained and Mycroft had no doubt she had sustained a variety of lesser bruises elsewhere. 

_Five minutes out. Minor injuries. MH_

He tracked her carefully until she reached the park and placed a car on standby. When Sherlock and Tara began to walk to Baker Street, Mycroft sent the car to them. He didn’t stop watching the feed until Sherlock and Tara disappeared into 221. 

Mycroft closed his laptop with a sigh and leaned back into Greg. 

“Everything all right?” Greg asked, shifting so he could put an arm around Mycroft. 

Mycroft closed his eyes. No, everything was not all right, but it was also not the possible disaster it had been twenty minutes before. 

This was why caring was not an advantage: it made life difficult and complicated and hard to prioritize. When one cared, one had to make choices that hurt people one didn’t want to hurt. 

“It will be,” Mycroft replied after a moment. 

“If you say so,” Greg said. “I trust you.” 

_Sentiment_ , Mycroft thought. 

But he would try to deserve it. 

 

_Left a compactible umbrella for T at Maggie’s. MH_

Sentiment, apparently, was contagious. 

_Thank you. SH_

More than anything else, it was his brother’s politeness that indicated the seriousness of the situation – how deeply and irreversibly Sherlock was drawn into the problem of Tara. 

 

_T used the umbrella today. She nodded at a camera. MH_

_Very polite. MH_

_She always is. SH_

 

_Case – urgent – need you to meet T at Angelo’s. 12:30. SH_

Mycroft summoned Anthea; he would need his schedule rearranged. 

_Please. SH_

_Of course. MH_

_Be nice. SH_

Mycroft – secure in his office – allowed a flicker of a smile. 

_I’m always nice. MH_

 

“Thank you for the umbrella,” Tara said as she took the seat across from him. 

Mycroft waved a hand. “Sherlock told me your usual. I’ve taken the liberty of ordering for us.”

She looked at him, analysing – deducing – discovering Greg, he knew. 

He waited for a verbal summary, but she sipped at her water.

Interesting. 

“Do you approve of him?” Mycroft asked her. 

Her eyes widened. “You do, certainly, and you’re desperate for the relationship to work out but unsure how to manage it, partially because you don’t do relationships, ever, but especially because you think the class differential is going to prove insurmountable, and sooner rather than later.” 

Mycroft smiled gently, because he thought Tara rather needed the reassurance. “Greg is a far better man than I am, lower pay grade notwithstanding.” 

Tara smiled back and ducked her head. 

Evidently, working with Sherlock hadn’t quite acclimated her to being praised, rather than punished, for her observations. 

 

Tara started playing a game with him. 

It was an unexpected development, mainly because people didn’t tend to look at him and think, _yes, Mycroft Holmes seems like the kind of person with whom I would like to play a game, just for fun, no geopolitics._

In fact, people had never looked at him and thought that, not even when he was still of the age that children generally played such games. 

But here was Tara, clearly playing with him. The CCTV game wasn’t, perhaps, one that would be recognized by other schoolchildren, but it was a game that Mycroft understood. 

Mycroft wasn’t wholly certain that Sherlock would approve of the game, but Tara was as safe as she’d ever been – safer, even. Mycroft didn’t dwell on the fact that, for once, he was being the reckless one. Although, to be fair, it was Sherlock’s recklessness that had gotten the both of them involved in the first place. 

 

It was a Wednesday evening, and Mycroft hadn’t yet left the office when his mobile rang: John’s ringtone. 

Frowning, Mycroft pushed aside the memo he’d been reading and answered. John _never_ called him. Texted, yes, occasionally – but called? No. 

John didn’t say ‘hello’ or ‘Mycroft’ or even ‘It’s urgent.’ Instead, he rattled off a location. 

Mycroft, who was somehow always anticipating this call, engaged the protocol he’d established years before. 

“You’re not with him,” Mycroft said. An alert popped up on his laptop: the ambulance was on its way. 

“No, I’m at the flat, but I’m – ” John began. Mycroft could hear John rushing down the stairs, heard the sounds of Baker Street as the doctor stepped out into the night. 

“I’m sending a car for you. It will take you to the hospital,” Mycroft said. 

“Fine,” said John. 

“Did he call you?” Mycroft asked, because if John wasn’t with Sherlock, then how did he know? 

“Tara found him,” John said, his voice grim. 

“Is she all right?” Mycroft asked, then, “It’s Wednesday.”

Mycroft heard the sound of a car door being shut, and the ambient noise of Baker Street faded. 

“She didn’t say,” John whispered. “I think so – I think she just found him – but she didn’t say, and she hung up on me so I could call you – but I didn’t ask.” 

“Fine,” said Mycroft, as a member of his security team stepped into his office. “I need to go. The ambulance is less than three minutes out. I need to contact Tara. I’ll meet you at the hospital.” 

He didn’t say, _Sherlock is going to be fine. Everything is going to be all right. Stay calm._

John had been an Army doctor; he knew how to remain calm in a crisis. John also knew that Mycroft didn’t know any more than he did about Sherlock’s state – perhaps even less, given that it had been John, not Mycroft, who had spoken with Tara. 

Mycroft hung up and texted Tara. 

_Ambulance in 2 minutes. MH_

She didn’t reply. 

“Sir,” said Anthea, stepping around the security officer. “We can brief you on Sherlock’s movements tonight on the way to the hospital. Let’s go.” 

Mycroft permitted himself to close his eyes for one – full – second. 

There was Sherlock to think about, his little brother, who was hurt, so hurt that he hadn’t been able to call for help himself. There was John to think about, the ex-Army doctor who couldn’t live without his mad detective of a partner. There was Tara, who was fifteen and homeless and somewhere out there in the dark – Mycroft knew she wouldn’t have ridden in the ambulance – wondering if the person she cared most about in the world would ever open his eyes again. 

And then there was the fact of Sherlock’s attack itself. Sherlock’s attackers had to be found, destroyed. That was Mycroft’s job. 

He stood and followed Anthea out of his office. 

If the European Union fell apart that night because he was at his brother’s bedside – Mycroft honestly didn’t give a damn. 

 

Sherlock was out of surgery. 

He hadn’t yet woken up, but he was out of surgery, he would make a full recovery, and everyone could breathe again. 

John, Mycroft, and Greg were all huddled in Sherlock’s room – private, obviously. Greg squeezed Mycroft’s hand. No one spoke. 

The door opened, and Mycroft tore his eyes away from Sherlock’s battered form, startled. There had been no knock, no message from his security team announcing a doctor’s imminent arrival.

The individual who entered the room, though, wasn’t a doctor or a nurse or even Anthea, handing out coffee and updates on the hunt for Sherlock’s attackers. It was Tara. 

She seemed just as surprised to see them as they were to see her. 

“Sorry,” she whispered, instantly backing toward the door. 

“It’s all right,” Mycroft said. 

“Tara. Of course,” John said at the same time. 

Greg glanced between them, but Mycroft – who could explain the tangled web of alliances between every country and pseudo-country on the globe under any circumstances – really, really, did not care to explain Tara, not just then. Mycroft would, of course, eventually – he didn’t enjoy keeping more secrets from Greg than was strictly necessary – but he thought he would perhaps be forgiven for putting off the conversation just a while longer. 

Tara looked at Sherlock. She was paler than usual, clearly having spent the last few hours in as much terror and panic as the rest of them. Her clothes were covered in blood – Sherlock’s blood. Mycroft had forgotten that this would be the case, and he was unsettled by his own surprise. He made a mental note to have Anthea fetch replacements. 

“Thank you for calling me,” John said. 

Tara nodded uncertainly. 

“At some point, you’ll have to tell me how you evaded my guards,” said Mycroft, striving to keep his voice as light as possible. 

“But then how will I see Sherlock?” The teenager couldn’t match his conversational tone; instead, she sounded desperate. 

“You could ask,” Mycroft replied. 

Tara looked at John, waiting for some sort of refusal, then back at Sherlock. 

“I should go,” she said after another minute. “Thank you for letting me see him.” 

As if Mycroft – or John – would refuse her. She had called John, after all; it was only thanks to her that Sherlock was safely in hospital at all. 

“Do your parents know you’re here?” Greg asked. 

“Kind of,” Tara replied, not looking away from Sherlock. 

It was, Mycroft supposed, about as honest of an answer as she could give. If anyone could be counted as her parents, it was John and Sherlock, and John knew she was there. 

“But you came here alone?” Greg continued. 

Tara nodded. 

Her face was drawn and she looked miserable. She looked as if she were waiting for John, even Mycroft, to explain her homelessness to Greg. 

“I’ll take you home, then,” Greg said, which was a development Mycroft should have predicted: Greg was _nice_ like that.

“No,” Tara said immediately. “It’s fine. Thank you.” 

Greg frowned. “I’m going to take you home. It’s too late for you to be out by yourself.” 

Tara took a deep breath, and although Mycroft knew he was only delaying the inevitable, he stood up. 

“I’ll do it, Gregory,” he said. The bleak situation seemed to call for formal names. 

Greg stood up, too. “No, Mycroft, I can do it, you should stay here with John – or go home and sleep, something, but I can take her home.” 

“I know where she lives,” Mycroft replied, looking steadily at Tara. “I’ll do it. All right?” 

“Thank you,” Tara said. 

John cleared his throat, and, tensing, Tara turned to him. 

“You should stop by in the morning,” John offered. “He should be awake, then.” 

“I’m not sure – ” Tara started. 

“He’d love to see you,” John said. 

When Tara glanced at Mycroft for confirmation, he nodded. 

“Good night,” Mycroft said, deciding that lingering would do no one any good, and led Tara out of the room. 

“You don’t have to take me anywhere,” Tara said quickly, as soon as the door was shut behind them. 

Mycroft raised his eyebrows. 

They walked in silence to the waiting car. 

“I presume that at this late – or should I say, early – hour, you will be unable to gain entrance at either Maggie’s or a shelter,” he said, before Tara could speak. 

She nodded. 

“Then you’ll have to stay with me for the night,” Mycroft decided. 

“You don’t have to,” Tara said. 

“I am aware,” Mycroft replied, even though he did have to – neither John nor Sherlock – nor himself, for that matter, nor Greg, once he found out who Tara was – would forgive him if he didn’t. “But I wish to be of assistance, and I believe this is what Sherlock would want.” 

Tara gave him a sceptical look, indicating that she thought Mycroft’s reading of Sherlock’s wants unlikely to be accurate. 

“Not unlikely,” Mycroft said. “Fact.” 

 

His mobile chimed: text from Anthea.

_Guest bedrooms readied for T. A_

If Tara had visited his house under normal circumstances – although, considering, any such circumstances would have to be abnormal – Mycroft would have been interested in cataloguing her reactions, in reading her deductions of a space that very few other people ever saw. 

Mycroft knew what sort of place – what sort of style and decoration – people expected. He never invited any of them to see for themselves, and he didn’t feel obligated to actually carry out their expectations. It was his house, after all. 

Tonight, however, he simply bent down to take off his shoes and asked, “Are you hungry?” 

Tara eyed his kitchen. 

Yes, she was hungry. 

“I need to send a few work emails. Please, help yourself,” Mycroft said, waving a hand toward the pantry. “Stairs are just around the corner. The first rooms on both sides are guest rooms; choose whichever you prefer. We’ll have breakfast here in the morning before going to the hospital.” 

Mycroft left his kitchen in her capable hands and headed to his office. He wasn’t planning on sleeping that night – not with Sherlock’s attackers still on the run, not with his brother’s care to coordinate from afar, not with – although Mycroft loathed the intrusion – the Eurozone clamouring for his attention. But Tara didn’t need to know that. 

 

Around five in the morning, Greg texted. 

_Case. Can’t get anybody to cover for me. GL_

_I’ll stop by the hospital as soon as I’m through. GL_

_Let me know if you need anything. GL_

_You_ , Mycroft thought. 

_Be safe. MH_

_Always. GL_

 

Mycroft returned to the kitchen to wait. He knew Sherlock’s predominate strategy regarding Tara was to arrive before her and thus permit no room for wriggling out of such activities as the consumption of food and the exchanging of phone numbers and the extraction of promises. 

“Good morning,” Mycroft said when Tara entered the room, dressed in the blood-free clothes Anthea had assembled for her. “Did you sleep well?” 

“Very well, thank you,” she replied, and Mycroft saw that she had, all things considered. 

He wondered if he could persuade her to stay with him until Sherlock was released from hospital. Mycroft thought her acquiescence unlikely, now that the danger was passed. He wondered if he should try anyway, if it would be easier for Tara to agree to stay here than at Baker Street, because he knew that in her mind, Sherlock and John were not-parents, while Mycroft was simply a detached problem solver. Mycroft didn’t mind the label, especially not if it allowed him to help Sherlock cope with his own designation. 

Mycroft wondered if it would ever be permissible for him to tell her that he, too, cared. For now, though, his supposed aloofness was needed to balance out the obvious caring that Sherlock and Tara both attempted to ignore. 

“How do you take your eggs?” he asked instead of relaying any of this. He turned toward the refrigerator and found the egg carton. 

Tara didn’t answer. Indeed, she looked as if she couldn’t – as if she hadn’t heard him at all, but instead was lost inside of a memory – perhaps one in which someone had asked a similar question – and Mycroft wondered if this past breakfast maker had been John or Sherlock. 

“Have you found who did it?” she asked. 

The refrigerator was still open, but Mycroft somehow couldn’t move to shut it. 

“We know who,” he said. That much, at least, he and his agents had accomplished during the night. “We’ve yet to apprehend them, but rest assured, we will, and sooner rather than later.” 

“Good.” 

“Sherlock is very lucky that you found him,” Mycroft said, because he thought it was high time he told her that. 

“I only wish I’d been there sooner,” Tara replied. 

“We all wish it hadn’t happened in the first place,” Mycroft said sincerely. “You did very well.” 

Tara remained silent. Mycroft fetched a pan and bowl from a cabinet and set them on the worktop. 

He offered her a small smile. “Scrambled, then?” 

Tara nodded and – ah, here was a small victory – smiled back. 

 

John, barely awake, was still slumped into his chair at Sherlock’s side when Tara and Mycroft entered the hospital room. Sherlock was conscious. 

“My guardian angel,” Sherlock murmured to Tara. His voice was hoarse, and Mycroft winced at the rough sound. 

“Good morning,” Tara replied. 

Mycroft guided her into the chair beside John’s. 

“When John gave you his number and told you to call, I believe he imagined it would be used for your emergencies, not mine,” Sherlock said, and attempted a painful smile. 

“Yes. Well,” Tara said. 

“You stayed at Mycroft’s last night,” Sherlock decided, his eyelids fluttering shut. 

“I did,” Tara said, not taking her eyes off of him. 

John looked up at Mycroft, who was standing at the end of Sherlock’s bed. “Thank you,” he said. 

Mycroft nodded. 

Together, the three of them watched Sherlock sleep. 

 

On Friday, Sherlock’s attackers were caught. They were summarily… relocated.

 

On Saturday night, Greg stayed over at Mycroft’s. He didn’t ask about Tara, and Mycroft didn’t know whether to feel relief or shame. 

 

Mycroft and Tara never discussed it, but they stopped playing their CCTV game. 

Mycroft started sending Sherlock – and, by extension, John – a daily breakdown of her movements. He made sure to include information regarding her food intake and where she would be sleeping that night. 

When Tara used the umbrella or wore the deerstalker, Mycroft attached a picture to the nightly reports.

It had been years since he had watched Sherlock as closely as he was now watching Tara, and the transition was more painful than he had expected. 

Mycroft preferred to solve situations, not watch via CCTV as they careened ever closer toward inevitable disaster. 

 

On the evening of the second Tuesday of August, Anthea stepped into his office and announced, “You’re leaving to pick up Greg for dinner in fifteen minutes.”

Mycroft glanced at his watch and swore – Pashto, today. 

“Uzbekistan can wait four hours,” Anthea informed him. 

“He hates it when I leave bed to finish work,” Mycroft replied, staring resolutely as his computer screen. Greg never _said_ it, of course – he knew nearly as well as Mycroft what it was like to be on call twenty-four hours a day – but Mycroft felt the disappointment all the same. 

Before Anthea could reply, though, his mobile rang: Sherlock. 

Mycroft answered after a single ring. Anthea, recognizing the ringtone, stayed where she was. 

“What is it, brother dear?” Mycroft asked. 

“Tara – Muriel, actually – ran out. She was following Lagrange, and I didn’t know he was the Three Rivers Killer’s accomplice but he is and – we had a fight. We argued, she left, you have to find her, it isn’t safe,” Sherlock said in a single breath. 

Uzbekistan could, indeed, wait four hours. 

“Of course,” Mycroft said, pulling up the feed from the cameras around Baker Street. “Oh, Sherlock.” 

“Shut up,” Sherlock said. “Find her. I don’t care if Eastern Europe falls to Stalin or Bismarck conquers Africa or Genghis Kahn destroys Jerusalem because you’re distracted, _find her_.” 

“Your grasp of current affairs is woefully out-dated, little brother,” Mycroft replied, quickly finding Tara’s – Muriel’s – departure… and quickly losing her after that. 

“She’s avoiding cameras like the plague, but she still has her mobile on,” Mycroft informed him after checking the phone’s GPS signal. 

“That’s not going to last long,” Sherlock replied, his voice grim. “I expect she’ll throw it in the Thames as soon as she remembers.” 

“Your argument went that poorly?” Mycroft asked, gesturing Anthea toward him. 

“Yes, the argument went that badly,” Sherlock snapped. 

“Do you think it’s wise to confront her right now?” John asked. 

“I think if we don’t find her now, we won’t have another chance for days,” Sherlock answered. 

“With a serial killer potentially searching for her as well, her safety – not, perhaps, her goodwill – must be our priority,” added Mycroft. 

“Send her coordinates to my phone,” Sherlock instructed. 

Mycroft hung up and looked at Anthea. 

“Cancel _everything_ ,” he instructed her. 

As he connected Sherlock’s mobile to the signal on Muriel’s, Mycroft texted Greg. 

_Tara missing. Will have to reschedule dinner. MH_

_The girl from the hospital? GL_

_Don’t worry about it. Anything I can do? GL_

_The Three Rivers Killer may be looking for her. My people will coordinate with SY. MH_

_We’ll find her. GL_

Mycroft, too, felt confident that they would locate Muriel. Whether they would locate her alive was rather a different question. 

 

After fifteen minutes, they lost the signal from Muriel’s mobile.

_Continuing on to last known location. SH_

Muriel had become far too adept at their CCTV game, only now, it wasn’t a game, and it _hurt_ , because their game hadn’t been about hiding, it had been about tacitly acknowledging each other the only way they could, and Mycroft hated – hated – hated to see it turned against him. 

 

Two hours later, John called. 

Distantly, he heard Sherlock whisper, “Muriel?” 

“Muriel called. Track, _now_ ,” John hissed to Mycroft, who instantly turned back to his laptop. 

Even more distantly, Mycroft caught a new voice: “Hands where I can see them.” 

For an instant, Mycroft couldn’t breathe. He thought it possible that his heart stopped beating altogether. 

“What’re you doing here?” the voice continued. Mycroft recognized the speaker as Lagrange. 

Then – thank God – Muriel: “Looking for Annabelle.” 

Annabelle? 

Lagrange again: “Turn around.” 

Scuffling sounds. 

Mycroft stared at his computer, willing the tracking to work just a little faster – no, much, much faster – come on – 

“A mobile, you little bitch?” 

“Mycroft,” John said to Mycroft. “Did you get it? Did you find her?” 

Mycroft looked at his screen, at the wide, pulsing blue circle that indicated the origin of the call. 

“Not quite,” he replied. “I narrowed it down to a reasonable search area but – I’ll send Sherlock the schematics so he can prioritize blocks or buildings.” 

“Thank you,” said John. 

 

The three of them relocated to one of Mycroft’s cars, a mobile headquarters. Greg was coordinating from the other end of the search area. 

“We should have put trackers on her bag,” Sherlock snapped. “Then we would know where she was even if she _had_ tossed the mobile in the Thames.” 

“I’ll make a note of it,” Mycroft said, inwardly cursing himself for not thinking of placing additional trackers on Muriel sooner. 

Sherlock glared. 

 

“Well?” Sherlock demanded. 

But Mycroft had nothing. 

Had he ever, really, had anything that Sherlock needed? 

And now – now, when Sherlock truly did need him – Muriel was the one thing Mycroft couldn’t give his brother. 

 

“John…” whispered Sherlock. 

“I know, love,” the doctor replied. 

Mycroft stared resolutely at his laptop screen. 

It didn’t matter that he wished Greg were sitting beside him, instead of being where, in fact, the police offer was most needed. 

It didn’t matter that Greg had called him ‘sweetheart’ the week before and Mycroft hadn’t known how to respond because he had never in his life imagined that someone would apply a term of endearment to him. 

It didn’t matter that neither one of them had ever said ‘I love you,’ even though Mycroft knew that he, at least, did. 

Caring was not an advantage. 

 

“They’re in the old paint factory.” 

“Move in, now,” he ordered. 

 

Mycroft didn’t go in. He couldn’t handle a gun, couldn’t run for the life of him, he would be a liability. 

John, Sherlock, Greg with the rest of Scotland Yard, along with a healthy mix of Mycroft’s personal squad – they tore into the factory. 

Mycroft stood outside a door with Anthea, his mobile clutched in one hand, waiting. 

Waiting.

What was taking so long?

Surely there were enough of them to search the bloody place efficiently. 

But standoffs – those took time. 

Mycroft wished that he were not quite so intelligent, that he didn’t have the ability – the instinct – to play out a dozen likely and terrible and terribly likely scenarios in his mind –

His mobile rang: Greg. 

“Yes?” Mycroft demanded. 

“We’ve got her, she’s safe, she’s fine, Hopkins will lead you to us,” Greg said. 

“Lagrange?” 

“Alive. Unhurt,” Greg answered. 

_Not for long_ , Mycroft thought. 

“Annabelle?” he asked, belatedly, as Hopkins appeared in the doorway and ushered them into the building. 

“About six years old and terrified, but otherwise all right,” Greg said. “I’ve got to see Lagrange off.” 

They ended the call, and a minute later Mycroft was drawing close to a small group, huddled on the floor: Muriel, wide-eyed but apparently unhurt; Sherlock, holding her close to him; John, beside them; Sally Donovan, crouching next to the trio. 

“Sherlock and I adopted her,” Mycroft heard John explain. “She’s our daughter. No calls necessary.” 

Sherlock beamed at John; Muriel and Donovan looked surprised and sceptical, respectively. 

Mycroft stepped directly behind John. 

“I have copies of the paperwork with me, if you’d care to look, Sergeant,” said Mycroft.

He did, in fact, have said paperwork with him, having drawn up the adoption papers during the interminable search of the warehouse district. 

“Yes,” said Sherlock at once. “Look, Muriel, Uncle Mycroft is here with _bureaucracy_.” 

Mycroft had never once dared to think about the fact that, if his scheming proved successful and Sherlock became a proper father, he, Mycroft, would be an uncle. 

Uncles were permitted to care. 

“I dunno what he did with my bag… so I’ve lost my umbrella,” Muriel said to him. As if the umbrella _mattered_.

“Not a problem,” Mycroft replied. “Umbrellas are easily replaced. Nieces, less so.” 

Much, much less so. 

Muriel looked uncertainly toward John, who nodded. 

“I can’t believe you didn’t _say_ anything,” Donovan complained. “You went and _adopted a child_ and didn’t tell anyone, who does that?” 

_People whose brothers create the adoption papers while the child in question is held by a serial killer’s accomplice_ , Mycroft thought. 

“When did you adopt her, anyway?” Donovan pressed. 

“Recently,” said Sherlock, not missing a beat. 

Muriel grinned at him. 

“Recently,” Donovan repeated, then – “ _Oh_. She’s your Tuesday-Friday, isn’t she?” 

“Yes,” said Sherlock. 

“You could have said something,” Donovan said. Her tone became gentler. “You could have said, ‘Sally, I’d love to fill out paperwork, but I’ve a meeting with a social worker about my daughter and need to dash.’ You could have said, ‘Normally I stick around for the arrests, but it’s midday on Friday and my daughter is expecting me.’” 

“I… didn’t expect you to understand,” Sherlock replied. 

The sergeant looked at Muriel. “Your father’s a bit of an idiot.” 

Mycroft felt his shoulders loosen. Donovan – _Donovan_ – accepted their story, accepted it so thoroughly that she would term Sherlock a _father_ and Mycroft wished he were recording this so he could play that line over and over again. 

“Isn’t everyone?” Muriel replied. “Besides, he’s brilliant most of the time, so I think he gets a pass on this.”

Sherlock whispered something to Muriel, but Mycroft missed it, distracted as he was by Greg’s return. Greg didn’t reach for his hand, didn’t so much as let their arms brush, didn’t touch him at all, but Mycroft knew this was not a personal sight: Greg was a professional. 

Mycroft wanted to touch him, though. Mycroft wanted to hold him, to let himself be held, because neither of them exactly had any right to be shaken up by the night’s events, but Mycroft was shaken, very much so, and he knew Greg hated kidnapping cases, especially when children were involved. 

Donovan turned to Greg. “Did you know that Sherlock and John adopted a kid?” 

Mycroft winced. He would have to explain the situation thoroughly as soon as the two of them could get away. 

Greg looked at Muriel as he said, “I had some idea.” 

“We’ve got another genius in the family now,” said John. “I’m outnumbered and deliriously happy about it.” 

He would be, too, Mycroft knew, once Muriel was actually installed in 221B. 

“You’re not also secretly married, are you?” Donovan asked Sherlock and John, her hands on her hips. 

“What? No,” said John, bewildered. 

“What could possibly lead you to conclude that?” asked Sherlock. 

“You’ve done it backwards, you know,” Donovan explained, a smile spreading across her face. “You realize that most people go about it in a different order.”

“Sherlock and John aren’t most people,” Muriel said. “They’re better.” 

Yes, Mycroft rather thought that the domestic addition would work out quite nicely. 

“What order?” Sherlock asked. 

“Normally, when people plan on having children together – and adoption definitely counts, I’m actually impressed you had the patience to go through the process – they get married first,” explained Donovan. 

“Oh,” said Sherlock, letting go of Muriel and turning to his doctor. “John?”

“Oh, God, yes,” his doctor replied, and quickly kissed his now-fiancé. 

Mycroft wondered where Anthea was. They had a wedding to plan. 

“Did they just get engaged at a crime scene?” asked Donovan, shocked and glancing between Greg and Muriel, as if for support. 

As if either of them shared her view of what was ‘appropriate’ at a crime scene. 

“Brilliant, isn’t it?” Muriel replied, smiling broadly at Greg, who smiled back.

They weren’t ready – not nearly so – but Mycroft wondered if Greg would ever say ‘yes’ to _him_ – although, he had to admit, hopefully not at a crime scene. 

“I quite agree with Muriel,” Sherlock said. 

“Mummy will be so pleased,” Mycroft said, although what he meant was, ‘I am so pleased that you found John and cared for him and loved him and permitted yourself to be on the receiving end of sentiment.’ His spoken comment earned him an eye-roll from Sherlock anyway. 

Apparently even engaged men could act like eight-year-olds. 

“Knowing the two of you, I suppose it wouldn’t have happened anywhere else,” Donovan admitted. 

“Quite right,” agreed Sherlock happily. “Muriel, you’ll be in the wedding party, of course?” 

“I – oh,” said Muriel, and Mycroft knew at once that she assumed the adoption to be a sham – which it most certainly was not. “Yes?” 

The family had a chateau in France that would do well for the honeymoon, Mycroft decided. 

“Excellent,” said John. The doctor stood and helped Muriel up. 

“We’re done here,” Sherlock declared. “We’re taking Muriel home.” 

The Watson-Holmes trio took one of Mycroft’s cars back to Baker Street. Mycroft tracked the progression of the car out of the corner of his eye as he arranged for the interrogation of Lagrange. There was still a serial killer to be found, after all. 

 

_She’s staying. SH_

_You’re not allowed to make her eggs. SH_

_You’re not allowed to be attacked and bleed out in deserted alleys. MH_

 

An hour after the Three Rivers Killer was caught – which, thanks to Lagrange’s remarkably rapid confession, was not unacceptably long after Lagrange had been captured in the first place – and whilst Greg was positively drowning in the paperwork, Mycroft selected a dozen umbrellas and sent them to Baker Street to await Muriel’s judgement. 

 

On Saturday, Mycroft and Greg cooked dinner together in Mycroft’s kitchen. 

When the meal was ready and they were both seated, wine glasses in hand, Greg looked at Mycroft expectantly and waited. 

Greg was exceptionally patient while Mycroft explained the entire affair, interrupting only with scattered utterances of “Christ.” 

Then it was Mycroft’s turn to wait. As pragmatic a police officer as Greg was, Mycroft wasn’t sure that he would be forgiven this particular secret.

“Okay…” Greg said at last. “Okay.” 

Mycroft waited a bit more. 

“I understand why you didn’t tell me. She wasn’t exactly… yours to tell, and, you’re right, I would have made her go back into foster care – but I still don’t like that you didn’t say anything. That you didn’t trust me,” Greg said.

Mycroft swallowed. He _did_ trust Greg. He would trust Greg with his life – more to the point, with Sherlock’s, a trust that was tested and strengthened with Sherlock’s every case.

“No more,” Greg said, reaching across the table and gripping one of his hands. “I’m not talking about the stuff you do for your job, I know how that works – I’m talking about this stuff, the everyday stuff, the stuff that isn’t officially classified.” 

Mycroft nodded and met his gaze. “Agreed.” 

Greg smiled, a small, soft smile that grew into a startlingly wide grin. 

“You’re going to be a brilliant uncle, My,” he said. “From the sound of it, you’ve been pretty bloody brilliant already.” 

“Aside from the ‘letting Sherlock set the pace and leaving Muriel on the streets for months’ part?” Mycroft suggested. 

“It’s Sherlock,” Greg shrugged. “Look at how long it took him and John to get together.” 

“We were much quicker on the uptake,” Mycroft said, half-sly, half-smug. 

Greg rolled his eyes. “Only because I demanded that you take me out for coffee.” 

“I was… contemplating the situation,” Mycroft defended himself. 

“Uh-huh,” his lover replied, unconvinced. Greg took a sip of his wine. “So, when do I get to meet this niece of yours properly, with everyone conscious and not out of their minds with panic?” 

“You’ll have to ask Sherlock. And John,” Mycroft amended. “But we’re not allowed to make her eggs.” 

“Eggs,” Greg repeated. 

“Eggs,” Mycroft said again. “I am permitted to supply umbrellas and CCTV streams, but not eggs.” 

“Eggs,” Greg said, puzzled, stretching the word out in order to fully contemplate it, as if ‘eggs’ held the secrets of the universe. 

“Yes,” Mycroft said. 

“A box without hinges, key, or lid/yet golden treasure inside is hid,” recited Greg. 

“An egg,” Mycroft affirmed. 

Greg examined him, a mischievous glint in his eyes. “You don’t know where that’s from, do you?” 

“No,” Mycroft admitted. 

Greg leaned back in his chair. “It is so very nice to hear you say that. Because you, Mycroft Holmes, know everything.” 

“No, I don’t,” Mycroft said, aware that he was speaking to the one person on the planet to whom he would make such an admission. “I don’t know – you. This.” 

“You don’t know that you want this?” Greg asked, his brow furrowing.

“No!” Mycroft cried. “No, no, not that at all – I do want this, you, us, very much. I simply don’t know… how.” 

“But you know you want this,” Greg said.

“ _Yes_ ,” Mycroft said. “I know I want this.” 

Greg, who was still holding Mycroft’s hand, raised it to his lips and kissed his knuckles. “That’s good enough for me.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Bonus AU headcanon:  
> "Dôl gín cofn," Mycroft spat as he hung up.  
> "What's that?" Greg asked.  
> "Sindarin," Mycroft replied grudgingly. "It means, 'Your head is empty.' Which the Prime Minister's _is_."  
>  Greg waited, because normally Mycroft caught on when Greg didn't know where the language was used - but Mycroft didn't elaborate.  
> "Never heard of Sindarin," Greg said pointedly after a moment.  
> Mycroft sighed. "Yes, you have."  
> Greg raised his eyebrows.  
> "It's one of Tolkien's Elvish languages," Mycroft sniffed.  
> "You learned _Elvish_ for me?" Greg asked.  
>  "Apparently."
> 
> When Mycroft dropped a box of books on his foot - because Greg had insisted that they only needed movers for the furniture, not the boxes - the man who ran the British Government hissed, "D'Arvit."  
> Greg looked at his partner suspiciously.  
> "I know that one," Greg said. "It's Gnommish."  
> Mycroft blushed, which Greg found adorable, and said, "You mentioned a few weeks ago that you read the series to your godson... I looked into it."  
> "And incorporated it into your curse schedule," Greg said.  
> "Indeed."  
> ***  
> I imagine that Muriel is a Harry Potter fan, and thus "Merlin's beard" makes its way into Mycroft's vocabulary. Also, the eggs riddle is one of Bilbo's riddles for Gollum in The Hobbit. 
> 
> tl;dr John's chapter coming up!


	4. Chapter 4

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> What John knows.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Remember what I said about this chapter being short? Yes, ignore that. It's taken me twice as long to post because it turned out being twice as long as I'd expected. 
> 
> Many thanks to my Beta Who Shall Not Be Named, who was accidentally press-ganged (?) into copyediting the first three chapters of this fic ex post facto. For the last eight years or so, we’ve been engaged in a vicious cycle in which she gamely reads dull, absurd, or otherwise contradictory plots whilst I continually benefit from her wonderfully unsentimental eye. And if that wasn’t enough, when she’s not challenging me to be a better writer, she’s challenging me to be a kinder person. The only way I really know how to thank people is to write for them, but unfortunately this would only result in more work for her. So, as a more proper thank you, I’ll leave you out of my mischief in the future but promise to be gracious to those who still feel it is a topic open for discussion.

John Watson was not a genius.

He knew this and accepted it, because he was a conductor of light, and that was good enough for him, thank you very much. 

At the same time, John was decidedly not an idiot. He was a doctor – a bloody good one at that – and moderately clever on the whole. 

So when Sherlock began disappearing from the flat on Tuesday nights – and not like he normally disappeared, because his usual style of disappearance was erratic, and this was a habitual disappearance, as if on a schedule – and casually suggesting that they eat Thai or Indian or Chinese as opposed to going to Angelo’s on Friday nights… John knew something was afoot.

John wasn’t overly concerned, because Sherlock did not return home from these appointments – as John had taken to calling them – injured or otherwise clutching bags filled with body parts or other suspicious-smelling subjects. 

John didn’t need to know where Sherlock was every minute of the day and what his partner did with the time in which they were separated, nor did he particularly want to. At the same time, there was something _off_ about these twice-weekly meetings, so John, who prided himself on never being too old to learn new tricks, began collecting data. 

Sometimes, Sherlock returned frustrated – irritated – but at whom, he never said. This in itself was unusual, as normally Sherlock had no qualms about expressing his displeasure with the world loudly and repeatedly. Sometimes, this underlying annoyance was overlaid by a measure of grim satisfaction – delight, even. Gradually, John realized that the annoyance was actually laced with a kind of regret, a kind of sadness, and that worried John more than the frustration or the pleasure. 

If there was anything he had learned from Sherlock Holmes, though, it was how to be patient. Sherlock would come to him in his own time. 

Until then, John would supply the tea. 

 

When John’s mobile buzzed one Tuesday night with a text from Sherlock, the doctor wasn’t surprised. Sherlock, after all, was late – much, much later than he’d ever been on any other Tuesday night since whatever this was had started. 

_On my way. Network consultant with me; sprained wrist. SH_

Network consultant – of course. Sherlock’s meetings had been with his Homeless Network spies… although, when John thought about it a bit more, he still wasn’t sure how Angelo’s factored in. 

_See you soon._

John settled into his favourite armchair to wait. 

He must have dozed off, because the next thing he knew, the door to the flat was closing and his shoulder was stiff. 

Sodding non-psychosomatic injuries. 

John blinked at his partner. He couldn’t properly make out the Network consultant, who stood half-behind Sherlock in the shadows. 

“Your shoulder won’t thank you for that tomorrow,” Sherlock said. 

John looked at his watch. It was past midnight. He looked back at the consulting detective. “Later today, actually.” 

John stood up and rolled his shoulder. The new position enabled him a better view of Sherlock’s consultant. 

Who was a child. 

A teenager, he supposed, but still. 

A girl who was cradling one wrist with her other hand, looking very, very nervous. 

Which John supposed he would be, too, if he spied for Sherlock Holmes and had an injured wrist and was now standing in Sherlock’s flat after midnight, facing his employer’s ex-Army partner. 

John looked back at Sherlock, making no effort to hide his displeasure.

Sherlock had better have a pretty good reason for hiring a teenager – especially if she was his Tuesday – even his Tuesday-Friday – and had been involving her in his cases for _weeks_. 

“Right,” said Sherlock. “John, this is Tara, my injured consultant. Tara, this is Dr. John Watson, my partner.” 

“It’s nice to meet you, doctor,” Tara said, very politely. 

_Oh, my God_ , John thought. She was _polite_ and that somehow made the situation even more surreal and terrible. 

“Tara’s wrist is sprained,” Sherlock said, as if John couldn’t see that for himself. 

John gave him a hard look. 

“Tell me this _didn’t_ happen because of something she was doing for you,” John said. 

Sherlock looked at Tara, which meant – oh, my God – he didn’t already know, and how unacceptable was that? 

“No,” Tara said, and John hoped she was telling the truth. 

John nodded and walked down the hall to the bathroom to fetch the kit. 

When he returned, Tara was sitting on the sofa, Sherlock hovering nearby. 

“Sherlock, could you get a glass of water and a parametecol, please?” John asked, and his partner disappeared into the kitchen. John turned to Tara. “May I?” he said, sitting beside her and nodding at her wrist.

Tara held her wrist out to him and he felt it, noting the swelling, noting when she winced. He bandaged it and was instructing her on how to care for it – namely, don’t strain it – when Sherlock reappeared, water, parametecol, and a bag of frozen peas in hand. 

“You’ll stay here tonight, then,” John said as Tara swallowed the pill. 

There was no way he was letting her leave now, in the middle of the night, not when they had her in the flat and could look after her properly. 

“No,” she replied at once. “Thank you.” 

“It’s past midnight,” John said. “You can’t leave now.” 

What kind of irresponsible person would he be, if he let her walk out without so much as a solid meal? 

“Why not?” she demanded. 

John wanted to roll his eyes at her and punch whoever was responsible for her homelessness in the first place. One or the other. Both. 

“Will you be able to get in at Maggie’s?” Sherlock asked, his voice soft.

John didn’t know who Maggie was, but he resolved to find out before the morning. 

Tara, avoiding Sherlock’s gaze, shook her head. 

“Stay,” Sherlock said, his tone so desperate John could hardly bear it. “One night. John can check your wrist in the morning.” 

“There’s an extra bedroom upstairs,” John said. 

“Your old bedroom,” Tara said, looking at John. 

“Yes, it was,” John smiled. Of course she knew that. 

Tara continued to scrutinize him. “Afghanistan or Iraq?” 

John’s smile widened into a grin. 

He knew how this story went. He knew how this story went, and he loved every bit. 

“Afghanistan. How did you know?” he challenged. 

“Sherlock’s comment about your shoulder wasn’t just the ordinary concern of a conscientious partner, no, you’ve got an old but once-serious shoulder injury to contend with,” Tara began, speaking just as rapidly as Sherlock did when deducing. “Old? Yes, because after stretching once you awoke, your shoulder hasn’t troubled you at all. Serious because Sherlock’s still asking after it. There’s an RAMC mug on the table, yours, obviously, so, shot in the shoulder on tour and invalided home. Where would a British doctor most likely be shot in the last, say, six years? Afghanistan or Iraq.” 

“Brilliant,” John said. “What else?” 

Tara stared at him. 

Had anyone ever asked her that before – besides, perhaps, Sherlock? 

“You’ve just told me the bedroom upstairs used to be yours – flatmates first, then lovers. Invalided home, Army pension’s not much, if you wanted to stay in London – which clearly you did – you needed a flatmate,” she continued. “Bit of an unusual situation, a wounded Army doctor needing a flatmate, so your flatmate would have to be unusual as well. I know Sherlock’s frequently in and out of St. Bart’s, he speaks of its labs with a long familiarity that leads me to believe this is not a recent development. Conclusion: that’s where you met – perhaps you were visiting an old school friend? Sherlock’s detective work meant you weren’t bored, your medical degree and combat training made you useful to Sherlock, somewhere along the way you fell in love.” Tara stopped abruptly. 

John knew she was waiting for a rebuke. Waiting for ‘piss off.’ 

But John would never say that to her. In fact, John wanted to have a word or two with everyone who had ever said such a thing to her. 

Mostly, though, John wanted her to stay. He wanted to be deduced twice over every day and never have to wonder how her wrist was healing or where she went when it was past midnight and she couldn’t go to Maggie’s. 

He didn’t question the fact that they had only just met. 

John Watson had learned to recognize when he wanted someone in his life.

“Amazing,” said John. 

“That’s not what people normally say,” Tara replied. 

What had John ever done to deserve introductions to two such extraordinarily brilliant people in a single lifetime? 

John nodded. “What do people normally say?” 

Tara shrugged, the picture of nonchalance, which John couldn’t stand because he knew how much Sherlock had been taunted as a child and it seemed cruel that the universe would make them watch such painful scenes twice. “Depends.” 

“Don’t listen to any of them,” John said, his voice low and urgent. “They’re all idiots. Right, Sherlock?” 

“Quite right,” Sherlock said in a soft, strangled tone, as if he still couldn’t quite believe that John was on his side – that John would always be on his side. 

“So,” John said. “I’ve passed the test, will you stay the night?” 

Tara frowned. 

_Please_ , John thought. 

“He meant what he said,” Sherlock said. “He really does think you’re brilliant and amazing. He’s not just saying that to manipulate you. John doesn’t manipulate people.” 

John thought that he had met far more less-than-benevolent manipulators in his life – Moriarty, Irene, Mary, even Mycroft at first – than was strictly necessary, and as such really had no intention of becoming one of them himself. 

“All right,” Tara said. “Tonight.” 

As John brought her water glass back into the kitchen, he wondered how he could extend the truce another night, and then another, until to end it would be unthinkable. Already, he couldn’t bear to think of her leaving in the morning. 

 

John closed their bedroom door and stood near the foot of their bed. 

“Explain,” he said, his arms folded. 

Sherlock told him everything, and it was like listening to him explain his time Away all over again, because the explanation was slow and sorrowful and full of broken apology and nothing like the acid deductions with which John had fallen in love. 

“All right,” John sighed, when Sherlock’s tale had at last led them back to the flat and his partner grew silent. “All right.” 

“We can’t turn her in. I promised,” Sherlock implored. 

John sank onto the bed, lifting a hand to the back of his neck as he thought. 

Sherlock sat, too, but a full half-metre away, which was unusual: Sherlock always touched John when they sat on the same surface or stood next to one another. His shoulders were hunched and his half-tense, half-defeated posture shrieked ‘guilt.’ 

“Okay,” John said. “That’s – fair, I guess. You promised. But now you have to promise me that you’ll look out for her. You can’t have her tail, I don’t know, drug lords or mass murderers.” 

They had to make this arrangement as safe as possible. 

“Of course not,” Sherlock agreed. “And Mycroft will help.” 

_Thank God for Mycroft_ , John thought wryly. 

“This just – Jesus,” John broke off, running a hand through his short hair. “This is so messed up, Sherlock.” 

And that, frankly, was saying something, because his and Sherlock’s lives were messed up practically by definition, by design. 

“This was the only way I could think of that didn’t end with her disappearing,” Sherlock said, still in that beseeching, desperate tone. 

“I know,” John soothed him. “And I can’t think of anything better. I just – she needs a family.” He collapsed back onto the mattress. 

“Yes,” Sherlock said, stopping and pausing, as if about to say more. 

John knew what Sherlock wanted to say: his partner didn’t want Tara to have _a_ family; he wanted her to have _theirs_. 

“I suppose that, if we asked her to stay, she’d say no?” John said, when it became clear that Sherlock couldn’t. 

“I’m afraid so,” said Sherlock. 

John looked steadily at his lover, who was still perched on the edge of the bed, hardly daring to look at him. 

Sherlock was scared, and not just that Tara needed them and wouldn’t have them, but that John wouldn’t forgive him for hiding her, that in trying to help Tara in his own limited, peculiar way, he would lose John. 

“Come here, you,” John said softy, lifting his arms. 

Sherlock didn’t need to be asked twice: he fell into John, burrowing against his chest. 

“I didn’t know what to do,” Sherlock mumbled. 

“I know, love.” John curled his fingers into Sherlock’s hair, rubbing his partner’s scalp gently, just the way Sherlock liked. 

“I keep thinking she’s _mine_ – ours – but she’s not, and I can’t protect her and I know she doesn’t want to be protected and it hurts,” Sherlock said, and if John hadn’t already been convinced that Sherlock adored Tara, that was it, because Sherlock still regarded sentiment as a foreign language and he wouldn’t bother to struggle through it unless he truly cared. 

“We’re going to figure this out,” John promised him. “Together.” 

After all, they’d long since learned that ‘together’ was the only way that worked. 

 

They returned to the sitting room before dawn because Sherlock predicted that Tara would prefer to avoid a morning confrontation and John wasn’t letting her leave without one – without breakfast and an examination of her wrist, anyway. 

When Tara found them waiting for her, she froze, startled. 

“You can go back and sleep for a bit, if you’d like,” John said, not bothering to pretend that there was anything ordinary about the hour. 

“I’m all right,” she ventured. 

“No, you’re not,” said John, because he believed in honesty and wanted her to know that she didn’t need to sham for them, not when they could tell she was lying. 

Tara glanced at Sherlock, eyes wide with alarm. 

What was it with geniuses not trusting John Watson, when he was the most trustworthy person they had?

“We’re not calling anyone,” Sherlock said, his voice soft. 

“You’re not happy about it,” Tara said to John. 

“I’m a man of my word, and I don’t like to break promises Sherlock’s made, either,” John said firmly. 

“I appreciate that,” she replied. 

“Pass me your mobile,” John instructed her. As she did so, he continued, “I’m adding my number to your contacts.”

John became her third contact, after Sherlock and Billy, the Network coordinator Sherlock pretended he hadn’t put through rehab. 

John knew Sherlock had provided the mobile for Network purposes, but he also knew that Tara likely didn’t have a second for more general reasons – that she didn’t have another phone full of people who worried about her and cared about her. Even though there was so much to like, so much to care about. 

“If you have an emergency, medical or otherwise, I want you to call,” John said after he returned the mobile to Tara. 

Hesitating, Tara looked to Sherlock. 

“John will be very unhappy with both of us if you don’t,” Sherlock insisted. 

John wasn’t sure how he felt over Sherlock’s lingering guilt regarding the situation, but John was determined not to take out his own worry on Sherlock. Turning on one another wouldn’t do Tara any good.

“And if there’s ever….” John began, because it needed to be said but needed to be said right. “If you’re ever in need of a place to stay for a night or two, come here. You’re right that I am less than thrilled about this situation, but it’s more important to me that you have people you can trust in a crisis than anything else.” 

“Thank you,” Tara said, her tone reverting to the careful politeness of ‘It’s nice to meet you, doctor.’ 

“Promise,” Sherlock said suddenly. “Or else you won’t.” 

Tara’s eyes grew wide. 

“I _know_ you,” Sherlock said, smiling, and John thought he had never seen anything so beautiful, so unbearably heart-breaking, because knowing people was – in some weird, wonderful way – what Sherlock was best at, and this time Sherlock didn’t just know, he _cared_ , and Tara couldn’t quite see that yet but John was determined that, one day, she would. 

“I promise,” she said, not in the polite voice, but her real voice, which was infinitely better.

“Excellent,” John said, deciding that it was time to move on to step two of the morning’s battle plan. “Now, how do you like your eggs?” 

 

It was a Wednesday night, and John had just retuned to the flat after dinner with Harry. 

Harry was – well, she was all right, actually. More than all right, maybe for the first time in her life. She’d been sober for eighteen months and had started volunteering at an animal shelter to fill her after-work hours. At the shelter, she’d met a very nice woman named Elizabeth, and John couldn’t even be worried that it was too soon after Clara and sobriety for Harry to become involved with someone, because suddenly – it felt sudden, anyway – it wasn’t too soon at all. 

Sherlock was out doing something… Sherlocky… so John made himself a cuppa, settled in his armchair, and began sifting through case notes, preparing to write his next blog post. 

When his mobile rang, John’s first thought was that Greg had a case for them and needed John to round up Sherlock and meet him at a crime scene – a possibility that John honestly wasn’t all that interested in, because it had been a nice, calm day and John liked having those every so often, just enough for him to catch his breath a bit from the exhilarating whirlwind that masqueraded as routine life at 221B. 

He stood and walked back into the kitchen, where his mobile was charging, and for the first second after he saw _Tara_ on the screen, he couldn’t move, because he honestly hadn’t expected her call and oh, my God – 

“Tara?” he answered. 

“It’s Sherlock, he’s really hurt, you need to call Mycroft and have him send an ambulance here, _now_.” 

Jesus Christ. 

Tara rattled off a location – an alley, Christ – and hung up. 

Numb – because he couldn’t afford to be anything else, he couldn’t afford to panic, not when Sherlock was involved, not when Sherlock – he called Mycroft. 

Mycroft answered almost immediately, and John repeated the location Tara had given him as he shoved his shoes on and pocketed his keys. 

“You’re not with him,” Mycroft said, not needing to be told that it was Sherlock they were discussing. 

“No, I’m at the flat, but I’m – ” John began, flying down the stairs and out onto the street. 

“I’m sending a car for you. It will take you to the hospital,” Mycroft interrupted smoothly.

“Fine,” said John, because he knew the ambulance would make it to Sherlock before he could and sometimes letting Mycroft run the show made everyone’s life easier. 

“Did he call you?” Mycroft asked. 

“Tara found him,” John said grimly. 

He hadn’t thought about the implications of that but – it wasn’t good. 

“Is she all right?” Mycroft asked, then, “It’s Wednesday.” 

Mycroft’s car pulled in front of him, and John ducked inside, shutting the door behind him before the car had been stopped for more than a second. 

“She didn’t say,” John whispered. “I think so – I think she just found him – but she didn’t say, and she hung up on me so I could call you – but I didn’t ask.” 

What if John was wrong? What if Tara was hurt, and John hadn’t even thought to ask, consumed as he was by the thought of Sherlock in danger? 

What if he – even he and Mycroft – couldn’t look after the both of them? 

“Fine,” said Mycroft. “I need to go. The ambulance is less than three minutes out. I need to contact Tara. I’ll meet you at the hospital.” 

Mycroft hung up. 

John clutched his phone, just in case he called back, just in case there was news, just in case Tara called, because, Jesus Christ, where was she now? Was Mycroft coordinating that? Wasn’t there something he could do – wasn’t there something he ought to do, besides sit here, useless, in this car and wait to arrive at the hospital, wait to know exactly how hurt Sherlock was, wait to know where Tara was and how she’d found him and even if she’d wasn’t injured, surely she’d be scared. 

_Please, God, let him live._

 

John hated hospitals, which was almost funny, because he was a doctor, but he did. He’d come to hate them as he struggled through the initial recovery from his bullet wound. Since then, his hate had multiplied: they reminded him of the intermittent tremor in hand that meant he couldn’t return to surgery; they reminded him of Sherlock, jumping off the roof; and now, he imagined, they would remind him of sitting in a thoroughly depressing waiting room, glaring away every nurse or doctor who didn’t have anything useful to tell him. 

He _loved_ Sherlock. 

Sherlock wasn’t allowed to be hurt – not seriously hurt, anyway, not the kind of hurt that John couldn’t patch up in their flat, not the kind of hurt that a cup of tea and a quiet night shouting at the telly couldn’t fix. 

 

When they finally let him into Sherlock’s room, John wanted nothing more than to curl up beside his partner on the narrow bed, to run his hands over his lover’s body, to place his ear over Sherlock’s chest just to hear the steady thump-thump-thump-thump of his heart. 

John knew better, of course, so he sat in a chair and stared at Sherlock and willed him to wake up. 

Greg and Mycroft joined him, but they only spoke when Anthea arrived with updates on the hunt for Sherlock’s attackers. 

The door opened without warning, and John looked up, confused and alarmed, because no one was supposed to enter the room without advanced notification – but it was Tara. 

John let out a breath he hadn’t known he been holding. 

Tara was here, safe, unhurt, but – Jesus – covered in Sherlock’s blood. 

“Sorry,” the teenager whispered, her eyes wide as she regarded the grim-faced trio, and backed toward the door. 

“Tara. Of course,” John said, while Mycroft said, “It’s all right,” which it was. 

Tara looked at Sherlock. John had no doubt that she was deducing every punch. 

“Thank you for calling me,” John said. 

She nodded hesitantly. 

“At some point, you’ll have to tell me how you evaded my guards,” said Mycroft, in what John thought was likely the kindest tone he’d ever used. 

“But then how will I see Sherlock?” She hadn’t glanced away from Sherlock, her eyes hungrily taking in the even rise and fall of his chest. 

“You could ask,” Mycroft replied. 

Tara tore her eyes away from Sherlock to regard John, as if he would ever, ever deny her access to Sherlock, as if he didn’t want her installed in his old bedroom in 221B that very moment. 

“I should go,” Tara said. “Thank you for letting me see him.” 

_You saved him_ , John thought. 

“Do your parents know you’re here?” Greg asked Tara suddenly. 

John glanced at Mycroft. Did Greg not know? 

“Kind of,” Tara replied, not meeting the D.I.’s gaze. 

_Only if Sherlock and I count_ , John thought, _and she doesn’t count us._

“But you came here alone?” Greg pressed. 

Tara nodded, looking trapped, which she was unless Mycroft would bloody _do_ something. Wasn’t being an interfering busybody practically his job description? 

“I’ll take you home, then,” Greg said. 

John wanted to kick himself. He should have thought of that ages ago – minutes ago, anyway. He could have sent Tara back to 221B, and she couldn’t even object that much, not when John and Sherlock would both still be here. 

“No,” Tara said, almost before Greg had finished speaking. “It’s fine. Thank you.” 

But it wasn’t fine. 

The police officer frowned. “I’m going to take you home. It’s too late for you to be out by yourself.” 

John almost wanted to laugh, even though there was nothing the least bit funny about the situation. Tara was continually out late by herself. 

“I’ll do it, Gregory,” Mycroft announcing, standing. 

If Mycroft actually took care of the situation, John vowed never to joke about his umbrella again. 

But Greg stood up, too. “No, Mycroft, I can do it, you should stay here with John – or go home and sleep, something, but I can take her home.” 

Personally, John felt that Greg was being overly ambitious by suggesting that Mycroft _sleep_ whilst his baby brother’s attackers were still at large, but at least the proposal was evidence of Greg’s good heart. 

“I know where she lives,” Mycroft replied, and John couldn’t help but wonder where exactly Mycroft had in mind. “I’ll do it. All right?” 

“Thank you,” Tara said. 

John cleared his throat. 

He had long ago mastered the art of tag teaming and delegation, and if Mycroft was handling tonight, he could handle the morning. Or, more accurately, Mycroft could handle the concrete logistics and John could handle emotional landscape. 

“You should stop by in the morning,” John offered. “He should be awake, then.” 

“I’m not sure – ” Tara began. 

“He’d love to see you,” John insisted. 

Sherlock would. In fact, he’d be very put out if he learned that John hadn’t extended such an offer. 

Tara looked to Mycroft; Mycroft nodded. 

John was having trouble comprehending just how _helpful_ Mycroft was being, but Tara seemed to have found an exception to Sherlock’s usual rules, and John supposed it shouldn’t be surprising that, having found her way into the heart of one Holmes, she should discover a place in the heart of the other. 

“Good night,” Mycroft said, as he and Tara left the room. 

Greg sank back into his chair. 

“So… who is she?” Greg asked. 

“She’s the one who found Sherlock,” John explained, even though that wasn’t really an answer at all. 

Greg knew it, too. 

“But she knows – all of you, actually,” the D.I. pressed. 

“Daughter of a friend,” John said, choosing to stare at Sherlock in lieu of meeting Greg’s eyes. 

When he glanced at the police offer, his brow was furrowed, but he didn’t ask any more questions. 

A small part of John wished he would, wished Greg would force the truth – the full truth – out of him, and find some solution the rest of them couldn’t see, and everyone could be safe and happy and – yeah, this wasn’t a bloody fairy tale.

He shook his head, willing himself to clear it of the mess that was the Tara situation, the mystery that was Mycroft – this one night could be Sherlock’s, just Sherlock’s, couldn’t it? 

John pushed every other thought, every other worry, out of his mind, dragging himself back to the first minutes in Sherlock’s room, before Greg and Mycroft, before Tara. 

He went back to willing Sherlock to wake up. 

 

Which Sherlock did, because Sherlock was bloody brilliant at living. 

Sherlock’s eyelids fluttered open, shut, open – 

“Sherlock… Sherlock?” John said, his voice probably louder than necessary but Sherlock was fucking _alive_ , and even though John had known that, known that for hours, it hadn’t been enough, not until now. 

“John,” Sherlock rasped, and that was all John needed, all he would ever need. 

John lifted a cup of water to Sherlock’s lips. 

“Easy, love, you’re all right,” he murmured as Sherlock sipped at the water. 

Sherlock’s eyes fluttered open – shut – open again, finally settling on John’s face. 

“You weren’t there,” Sherlock said. 

John crumpled at the words, because before everything else, he was supposed to have Sherlock’s back, always, supposed to be the constant to Sherlock’s chaos, supposed to be the shadow that stopped all others from touching his partner. 

“I know. I’m so – so sorry Sherlock, you should have called, I could have rescheduled with Harry – I wish you had told me…” John said brokenly. 

“No,” Sherlock interrupted. “I meant, you weren’t the one who found me. It’s just that – the person who did find me, they were talking to me, and I believe they were saying your name.” 

“Ah,” said John. “Tara found you.” 

John thought back to the phone conversation with Tara. She hadn’t said his name then, not even in greeting. She must have been – she must have been telling Sherlock that – John would be there soon – or that Sherlock had to stay – for him – of all the reasons Sherlock had to fight, John knew Tara would consider him the most important, the most potent. 

Sherlock frowned at the revelation. 

“Your attackers left you in an alley… one whose entrance streets aren’t covered by CCTV, at least not anywhere near the alley entrance. Apparently, Tara has some… game she plays with Mycroft,” John explained, trying not to wince. 

He and Mycroft had _exchanged words_ about the game when Mycroft had first met him in the hospital waiting room. 

“I told her there was no need to avoid the cameras,” Sherlock snapped. 

“He says she only does it when she knows he knows exactly where she’s meant to end up, on the other side, as it were. And that the rest of the time, she’s more deliberate than ever about making sure the cameras can see her,” John said, wearily repeating what Mycroft had told him. 

“No more.” 

“We’re all agreed there,” said John, and wondered where precisely Mycroft had taken her. 

“She found me… she called the police?” Sherlock asked. 

“No,” said John. “She called me.” 

Which, he supposed, meant she had really been desperate. 

 

_Case dragging a bit – I won’t able to get back until this afternoon, at least. GL_

_Hang in there. GL_

_Thanks._

 

John had left his chair exactly once that night – even frantic partners had to use the loo – so he was sitting when Mycroft and Tara entered the room. 

Mycroft appeared grimly satisfied; Tara wore the same nervous, eager look as the night before – or earlier that day, to be exact. 

“My guardian angel,” Sherlock murmured as he saw Tara. 

_Friends protect people_ , John couldn’t help but think. 

“Good morning,” the teenager replied, as Mycroft led her to the seat beside John’s. She sat gingerly, looking at no one but Sherlock. 

“When John gave you his number and told you to call, I believe he imagined it would be used for your emergencies, not mine,” Sherlock said. 

John winced. He wasn’t complaining, of course – and in some weird, thoroughly messed-up way, Tara’s call meant that she did trust John, at least a little, at least for Sherlock – but John didn’t want to be her emergency contact. Not just an emergency contact, anyway. 

“Yes. Well,” Tara replied. 

“You stayed at Mycroft’s last night,” Sherlock deduced.

 _Of course_ , John thought, more than a little relieved that Mycroft hadn’t just dropped her off somewhere – but of course he wouldn’t have, and of course he wouldn’t have left her alone at 221B, of course he’d brought her home, he probably had about a thousand guest rooms. Though, frankly, it would have been nice to _know_ this. Mycroft knew his number. 

“I did,” Tara confirmed. 

John looked at Mycroft. “Thank you,” he said. 

Mycroft nodded. 

To be honest, John didn’t usually give Mycroft much thought. As long as he stayed out of John’s way – out of Sherlock’s way – John stayed out of his, and everyone was happy. 

Now, though, John realized, more than ever – more even than right after Sherlock had come back, when they’d all been a mess and unwilling to say so – just how much it meant to know that there was another person who worried about Sherlock, who would do anything to protect him, who _cared_.

 

Sherlock agreed to stay in hospital as long as John agreed to meet Tara for lunch on Friday. 

John, who had expected Sherlock to drive a harder bargain than that, agreed at once. 

When Tara, replying to his text, said he ought to stay with Sherlock, John told her that Sherlock insisted. 

He meant ‘we.’ 

He and Sherlock were in this – whatever it was – together. Always. 

 

Following Sherlock’s instructions, John arrived at Angelo’s almost absurdly early. Even so, he only waited for a short while before Tara appeared, slipping into the seat across from him, her shoulders tense. 

“Sherlock told me your usual,” John said.

He wondered if Tara realized exactly what that _meant_ , that Sherlock met her for lunch at Angelo’s and knew her order and knew that if he didn’t arrive before she did, she wouldn’t come at all. 

“Thank you,” she replied. 

John took a deep breath. 

“He also informed me of your chemistry cover story. Are you really interested in chemistry?” he asked. 

If Tara were interested in chemistry, maybe they could convince her to come to the flat for experiments – carefully supervised by John, of course. 

And if she weren’t – well, John could tell her about being a doctor, and Greg about being a proper detective, and Mycroft about working in government – even though Sherlock would _hate_ that – and if she needed some sort of female role model, Molly would do nicely. 

Tara was interested in literature. 

John resolved to speak with Mycroft. Surely there was some top-secret library card he could acquire for her. John was also willing to bet that Sherlock would solve cases for Mycroft if it meant that Tara was spending time properly supervised in government archives. 

After two stories from med school, three from rugby, and five ridiculous cases, they were done eating and Tara finally looked relaxed. 

“Listen,” John said, dropping his voice. “Sherlock’s going to pretend that he’s well enough to meet you wherever he normally meets you on Tuesday nights, but he won’t be. You need to come to the flat instead.” 

He wasn’t even lying: Sherlock wouldn’t be well enough to leave, but he would be desperate to see Tara, and John’s solution would suit everyone’s needs. 

“All right,” she agreed, for once without hesitation. 

“Thank you,” John said earnestly. “He’s going to be fine, though, in the end. No permanent damage, he just needs a lot of rest for a week or two.” 

Tara smiled, just a little, just enough. “Sherlock, resting?” 

John laughed. Tara _knew_ him. “It’ll be a challenge, I give you that.” 

As they stood up to leave, John handed her a white envelope. 

“Sherlock told me how much,” he said, willing his hand not to tremble. 

Tara nodded, not meeting his eyes, and John felt sick. 

How did Sherlock stand to do this every Tuesday, every Friday? 

“Hey,” John said, because Tara appeared as miserable as he felt. “Everything’s going to work out.” 

“I’ll see you Tuesday,” Tara said. “Tell Sherlock I hope he feels better.” 

“You’ve got his number,” John replied. “Tell him yourself.” 

As he left Angelo’s and stepped into the car waiting to take him back to the hospital, John felt marginally better. 

 

John couldn’t believe that Sherlock was _thanking_ him for meeting Tara at Angelo’s. 

“You’re not the only one who cares about her,” John reminded him. 

“I know,” said Sherlock. “Thank you.” 

John wished, not for the first time, not for the last, that he knew who Tara’s parents were – or had been, at any rate. He wished he knew who was supposed to be taking care of her and why they weren’t. Why they hadn’t. 

Because if _they_ didn’t care about her – well, John wanted to rub the unbearable, undeniable fact of his and Sherlock’s caring in their faces. 

Even if Tara ignored the fact of it herself. 

 

Even without the special text tone, John would have known every time Sherlock received a text from Tara, because his partner’s face brightened and his muscles loosened and Sherlock would have been perfectly content in his convalescence if only he had been able to text with Tara the whole time. 

“Invite her to come for Doctor Who,” John said, handing Sherlock a fresh cup of tea. 

A few minutes later, Sherlock slumped further on the sofa, scattering cold case files – all homeless victims – onto the floor. 

“She won’t.” 

 

As John prepared to leave to do the shopping – they were out of tea and Mrs. Hudson could only be counted on for so many cups in a day – he told Sherlock to remind Tara to come to the flat. 

“She’s not going to forget,” Sherlock huffed, even as he reached for his mobile. 

“Tell her to come at seven. I’m cooking,” John said. 

“I imagine you’d cook every night if she lived with us,” Sherlock said, and John froze, because they never said – it – out loud, not since Tara’s first visit to the flat. It – the fact that they _wanted_ her – was one of their silent alliances. 

Although, now that John thought about it, their silent alliances almost always ended in decidedly explosive not-silence. 

Namely, the fact that they were madly in love with each other, and had been for ages, and oh, my God, why didn’t you _say_ anything, didn’t you already _know_? 

 

Tara rang the bell three minutes before seven. 

They ate dinner and watched two episodes of Doctor Who before Tara slipped out of Sherlock’s armchair – Sherlock was still installed on the sofa – and said she would see one of them on Friday. 

 

For some people, the signal that the day was over came in the form of a particular news broadcast, or perhaps a brief chapter of their preferred religious text. 

For John, it was the briefing Mycroft sent on Tara’s movements. 

John knew it was ridiculous, but he wanted a picture of Sherlock and Tara together, sporting deerstalkers and the sly, shy grins that came with particularly brilliant deductions. 

 

One morning, as John left for his shift at the clinic, Mrs. Hudson cornered him on the stairs. 

“John,” she began worriedly, “is everything all right between the two of you?” 

“What?” John gasped. “Yes, we’re fine, of course – more than fine.” 

Mrs. Hudson pursed her lips. “It’s just that he’s been playing in his _unhappy_ style.” 

John sighed. “Yes, I – I know.” 

Mrs. Hudson waited, her arms folded. 

“It’s not _me_ ,” John said. 

“It happens sometimes,” Mrs. Hudson said in a confidential, comfortable tone. “Couples go through rough patches. It happens to almost everybody – though I admit I’d hoped that you boys would be able to avoid all that.” 

“It’s not us,” John said, as firmly as he could manage. 

“You’d better take care of him, John Watson,” Mrs. Hudson said. “I can’t concentrate at all when he’s playing that sort of thing.” 

“Me neither,” John said. 

 

On the second Tuesday of August, John sent Sherlock to his meeting with Tara with a brief snog and a reminder that the new term would be starting in a few weeks and they’d have to work out a new arrangement. Then he turned on the telly and settled in to wait. 

He hadn’t expected Sherlock to return barely a half an hour later, Tara on his heels. 

“Hello, Tara,” John said. “Everything all right?” 

Sherlock slapped a notebook on the coffee table and whirled to face him. His partner’s hands tugged at his hair – an alarming development, given that surely, surely Sherlock hadn’t had enough time to become that frustrated, that panicked? 

“Sherlock?” John asked, then looked at Tara when Sherlock didn’t reply. 

But Tara appeared to be equally in the dark. 

“I’ve had her following Lagrange,” Sherlock blurted. 

“That’s the… smuggling case?” John asked, trying to recall any pertinent facts about the case. 

“I was _wrong_ ,” Sherlock spat, stalking toward the window. 

John stared. 

He could count the number of times Sherlock had admitted he was wrong on one hand. 

Sherlock had, of course, been wrong more often than that, but he rarely admitted it, and certainly not in such a straightforward manner. 

“About?” John asked. 

“They’re all connected, don’t you see?” Sherlock cried, ignoring him. 

“Sherlock,” John said, his voice just harsh enough to drag Sherlock back from whatever Mind Palace panic room he was stuck in. “Calm down and tell us what you know.” 

“The smuggling case isn’t just the smuggling case. It’s also the Three Rivers Killer case,” Sherlock explained after a moment. 

“The serial killer?” John said. “Lagrange is the serial killer?” 

Did this mean – because if this meant… 

“Not quite. His accomplice,” Sherlock replied, frowning. 

“You’ve had her – ” John barked, because out of everything he had expected to go wrong with the arrangement – and there had been many, many things he’d expected to go wrong – he had not predicted that Sherlock would put Tara in danger. 

“I know, I _know_ ,” Sherlock said. Turning to Tara, he added, “You’re off Lagrange.” 

_No shit, Sherlock_ , John thought. 

Tara crossed her arms, her eyes narrowed. “You’ll notice that I’m not actually dead.” 

“I’m trying to keep it that way!” Sherlock cried. 

“Right, then,” Tara said. “I’ll leave you to it.” 

“What?” John said. 

She couldn’t leave, not now, not when John still didn’t have a clue about what was going on, not when he was still scrambling to make sense of Sherlock’s revelation and its every single possible, deadly ramification. 

“Wait,” said Sherlock, and pulled out his wallet. 

John knew why. 

Tara needed go to Maggie’s and eat and probably purchase other things besides – but, just then, John wanted to call all of them out on the ridiculous, dangerous, unnecessary game they were playing, this farce that had gone on too bloody long, because Sherlock wasn’t just Tara’s employer. 

Tara regarded the wallet with a look that seemed to match at least some of John’s thoughts. 

“I don’t care about the money,” she said. “I just want to help.” 

“I’ll put you on someone else, a different case,” Sherlock said, which John thought was a reasonable offer, given the circumstances. 

Tara shook her head. 

What was it about geniuses that made them so stubborn? 

“You need it,” Sherlock insisted. “Don’t be an idiot.” 

John suppressed a groan. That, right there, was exactly what they didn’t need. 

Tara flushed angrily. “Like you’re not being an idiot right now. You don’t have enough to take in Lagrange or the Three Rivers Killer yet, so you’ll still need someone on him, but you don’t want that person to be me, even though I’m the best you’ve got. I thought you were a detective. I thought you _solved crimes_ , whatever it took.” 

At last, John had something concrete to tell Tara she was wrong about: he and Sherlock weren’t simply in the business of solving crimes, not anymore. Now, they were in the business of saving lives. Together. 

“Not whatever. Not quite,” Sherlock said, his voice suddenly much calmer, as if Tara’s incorrect assertion had reminded him of the original purpose of the whole argument. 

“You need to stay here,” John added, before Tara could reply to Sherlock. 

“What?” she gasped. 

“Until the serial killer is caught. It’s not safe,” John said. 

This wasn’t even him grasping as straws, trying to find a reason for her to stay. She needed to. Mycroft’s watching would no longer be enough to keep her reasonably secure. 

“It’s _London_. It’s never safe,” Tara argued. 

John scowled. “It’s less safe at present, especially for you, given that you’ve been following around Lagrange for – how long, Sherlock? A week? Two?” 

He knew his tone was pure ice, that if Sherlock had known, really known, whom she was tracking, he would have taken her off the case at once, but John was frustrated and angry and worried as hell. 

“He hasn’t seen me. Because I’m _good_ ,” Tara insisted. 

John decided all geniuses needed to take a course on overconfidence – recognizing it and acting accordingly, that was. 

“John’s right,” Sherlock said. 

Normally, John loved nothing more than hearing that phrase out of Sherlock’s mouth, but now he barely registered it. 

“No,” said Tara. 

“You should stay,” Sherlock insisted. 

“I am not yours to protect!” Tara shouted. 

How had they progressed to shouting? How had this escalated so badly, so quickly? 

“Yes, you are,” said Sherlock, who – almost – never admitted to caring, and if John could, just this once, have the stars align, Tara would agree and John would fold the both of them into his arms and make tea and they would find this damn serial killer and – 

Tara began to cry, tears skidding down her cheeks. 

“Tara –” John began, desperate and unable to hide it, not in the slightest. 

“That’s not even my _name_ ,” she interrupted flatly, still crying. “It’s Muriel. Good luck catching your killer.” 

She stormed out of the flat. John heard the door to 221 slamming below as he stared at the space where she had been moments before. 

“Mycroft,” John said immediately, only to find that Sherlock had already pulled out his mobile. 

Sherlock explained the situation in a rush; John turned off the telly. The program he’d been watching when Sherlock and Tara had arrived was still playing. 

“Shut up,” Sherlock said into his phone. “Find her. I don’t care if Eastern Europe falls to Stalin or Bismarck conquers Africa or Genghis Kahn destroys Jerusalem because you’re distracted, _find her_.” 

Somehow, John thought he had never loved Sherlock quite as much as he did in that moment.

Or maybe that wasn’t fair. 

He always loved Sherlock, always loved him deeply and desperately, and every ridiculous thing Sherlock did, every ridiculous thing Sherlock said, made John fall harder. And the brilliant thing about loving Sherlock Holmes was that he never had to stop falling, because Sherlock was always ridiculous, always amazing, and nearly always right. 

Watching Sherlock care about someone else meant watching every brilliant, _good_ part of him come together in one potent compound, and John didn’t want this new caring to end badly, didn’t want that stupid Holmes mantra to be confirmed – that caring was not an advantage. 

“That’s not going to last long,” Sherlock said to Mycroft. “I expect she’ll throw it in the Thames as soon as she remembers.” 

John assumed they were speaking about Tara’s – Muriel’s – mobile. 

Sherlock pressed the speakerphone button and threw the phone onto the sofa. 

“Yes, the argument went that badly,” Sherlock snapped. 

“Do you think it’s wise to confront her right now?” John asked, moving closer to the phone so Mycroft could hear properly. 

“I think if we don’t find her now, we won’t have another chance for days,” Sherlock said. 

“With a serial killer potentially searching for her as well, her safety – not, perhaps, her goodwill – must be our priority,” said Mycroft. 

And they were right, because Holmeses were almost always right, even when they were right about unpleasant things. 

“Send her coordinates to my phone,” Sherlock said, then hung up. 

“We’re going to work through this,” John told his partner. 

Sherlock didn’t look at him, just stared at his mobile and waited for Mycroft to show them the way. 

 

They were driving toward her when, fifteen minutes after the call with Mycroft, they lost the signal. 

“We’ll go on to her last known location,” said Sherlock, defeat in every syllable. 

John knew they wouldn’t find anything. 

Muriel knew better than to leave a trail that Sherlock Holmes could follow. 

 

They returned to the flat. 

John sat slumped in his armchair, his head in his hands, while Sherlock paced in front of the window, flipping his mobile in his hand. There had to be something. There was always something. 

The sound of Sherlock’s phone ringing abruptly broke their self-imposed silence. 

But it wasn’t just Sherlock’s phone ringing.

It was Muriel’s ringtone. 

“John,” Sherlock gasped, answering the call. “Muriel?” 

John grabbed his own phone, stabbing Mycroft’s name on the screen. 

“Muriel?” Sherlock whispered. He pressed the speakerphone button and moved closer to John. 

“Muriel called. Track, _now_ ,” John hissed to Mycroft, who – thank God – had answered the call at once. 

A cold, male voice issued from Sherlock’s mobile: “Hands where I can see them.” 

John’s hands were perfectly steady and his heart ploughed on, but every cell in his body shrieked, _no_. 

“What’re you doing here?” the voice continued.

 _Lagrange_ , Sherlock mouthed. 

“Looking for Annabelle,” Muriel replied. Her voice wasn’t shaking, but it was higher pitched than usual. 

“Turn around,” commanded Lagrange. 

There were scuffling sounds, and John knew how a pat down worked but he was a solider and doctor and his life was based on action, not this freezing hell of useless listening. 

“A mobile, you little bitch?” 

The line went dead. 

Sherlock threw his phone across the room. 

John couldn’t even bring himself to scold the detective. 

“Mycroft,” John said at once. “Did you get it? Did you find her?” 

There was a pause, an unacceptable pause, and John knew what the pause meant. 

“Not quite,” Mycroft replied. “I narrowed it down to a reasonable search area but – I’ll send Sherlock the schematics so he can prioritize blocks or buildings.” 

“Thank you,” said John numbly. 

Sherlock opened his laptop. Somehow, he never grew frustrated enough to throw the computer. 

 

They’d moved into one of Mycroft’s cars, which they were using as a mobile headquarters as they continued the search. 

“We should have put trackers on her bag,” Sherlock snapped at his brother. “Then we would know where she was even if she _had_ tossed the mobile in the Thames.” 

“I’ll make a note of it,” Mycroft replied. 

Sherlock glared. 

John stared blearily at the reports streaming in. 

_All clear._

_All clear._

_No sign of targets._

 

“Well?” Sherlock demanded. 

John had some experience with feeling useless – when he first returned to London after Afghanistan, when Sherlock threw himself off of St. Bart’s and John didn’t know that he would receive his miracle eventually. 

He knew that he’d received more than his fair share of miracles in his lifetime, but that didn’t stop him from asking – someone – for one more.

It wouldn’t even be his. 

It would be Sherlock’s, and Muriel’s. 

One more miracle. 

For all of them. 

 

“John…” Sherlock whispered, agony stretching out his name into two syllables. 

“I know, love.” 

It was all John had to offer. 

 

“They’re in the old paint factory.” 

“Move in, now,” Mycroft ordered. 

That, at last, was something John knew how to do. 

 

John moved ahead of Sherlock, his gun gripped between steady hands, checking each turn before they committed to it – and there were many, because the factory was old and large and labyrinthine and this felt like some terrible, twisted game of hide and seek, only even Mycroft didn’t have cameras here.

 _Make a sound, darling_ , John thought, which was what Harry had always shouted at him when he’d chosen his hiding spot too carefully and she’d grown frustrated. 

There – two pairs of footsteps – somewhere ahead of them in the dark. 

John felt confidence settle into his muscles. 

He knew how to do this. 

She was his, theirs, and now that they were all in the same place, Lagrange didn’t stand a chance. 

John sped up and Sherlock matched his pace and, yes, there, half a turn ahead, less, but John couldn’t risk a shot, not with Muriel so close to Lagrange, not with Muriel weaving and stumbling beneath the weight of the girl she carried in her arms, not when Lagrange still had his gun – 

He should have known that Muriel would solve his dilemma for him. 

John, still running toward the trio, watched as Muriel manoeuvred one foot in front of Lagrange, the other behind him, and sent all three of them crashing to the ground. They tumbled into a messy, desperate struggle, the girl – Annabelle, John assumed – wriggling out of the way, screaming, and Lagrange’s gun was somewhere beneath them but Lagrange had an arm pressed over Muriel’s throat – 

“Let her go,” John said, slowing now, not wanting to startle Lagrange, just in case the other hand found the gun before John could reach them. 

Lagrange didn’t so much as look at him. Bastard. 

“Let her go, or I swear to God I will shoot you, right now,” John said, stepping closer, and, swear to God, he would. 

Lagrange hesitated ever so slightly, but that was all the invitation John needed: he closed the gap between them, yanking the man off of Muriel and shoving him onto the ground. He restrained Lagrange’s arms with one hand and pressed his gun against Lagrange’s back with the other. 

If Muriel and Annabelle hadn’t still been there… if Sherlock were the only witness… 

An instant later, they were surrounded by what felt like half the Met. 

John relinquished Lagrange to Greg. Next to them, Donovan was murmuring to Annabelle, and John lost whatever Sherlock was saying to Muriel. 

“She needs water. Someone get me water!” Sherlock called, and even if the order hadn’t been directed at John, he took it. 

A police officer John didn’t know directed him to a paramedic, who dug a bottle of water out of a kit and handed it to John. 

Muriel was laughing a strange, half-hysterical laugh – the kind John associated with himself while on cases – when he returned to them and, sinking in front of them, offered her the water bottle. 

“Here,” he said. 

Muriel took the water, drinking it far too quickly in her haste, causing the paramedic who had given John the bottle in the first place to start toward them, but Sherlock glared him away. 

“Easy now,” John said. 

Donovan, Annabelle in her arms, drew next to them. 

“She says her mum’s name is Kate, but she doesn’t know their address. Do you know her?” the sergeant asked Muriel. 

As Muriel described where she thought Kate could be found, John began examining the rope burns on her wrists. 

Bastard, bastard, _bastard_. 

When Donovan returned to them, having passed Annabelle off to the nearest paramedic, she took in the tableau with disbelieving eyes. 

John, still focused on assessing Muriel’s injuries, ignored her. He had never felt it necessary to explain his choices to her, and that wasn’t going to change now. 

“Hey there,” Donovan said to Muriel. “I’m Sergeant Sally Donovan. You’re safe now.” 

“She knows that,” Sherlock interjected, rolling his eyes. 

“You’ve been really brave tonight, and thanks again for helping us out with finding Annabelle’s mum,” Donovan continued, her tone gentle and sincere. 

Muriel nodded but didn’t reply. 

“If you give us your parents’ numbers, we can call them and have them pick you up at the hospital.” Donovan continued, smiling. 

Sherlock met John’s gaze, his grey-blue-green eyes filled with panic. 

“That won’t be necessary,” Sherlock said quickly.

John nodded at him; Muriel closed her eyes. 

“Excuse me?” Donovan said. “This girl has just been kidnapped. We need to contact her parents.” 

Just this once, John wished that Donovan wasn’t as good of a police officer as she was, wasn’t as thorough, wasn’t as determined to care for the victims. 

“Yes,” said Sherlock. “But we’re already here.” 

_Oh_ , thought John. 

Yes, that would work. 

“What?” asked Donovan. 

“John and I are already here. _We_ are her parents, so you don’t need to call us,” Sherlock declared. 

John thought that, with the possible exception of the explanation Sherlock had given him in their first taxi ride, this was the most brilliant, most perfect train of logic Sherlock had ever revealed. 

“I don’t understand,” said Donovan. 

That, of course, was one of the many amazing things about life with Sherlock: you didn’t always understand, but once you knew, it was always incredible. 

“Sherlock and I adopted her,” John explained in the surest, most confident tone he had. “She’s our daughter. No calls necessary.” 

Over Muriel’s head, Sherlock beamed at him. 

“I have copies of the paperwork with me, if you’d care to look, Sergeant,” said Mycroft, appearing behind John in that frankly disturbing way he had of almost magically arriving at the very place and time at which he was needed without anyone ever being quite sure of how he’d gotten there. 

“Yes,” said Sherlock. “Look, Muriel, Uncle Mycroft is here with _bureaucracy_.” 

John grinned. 

If he hadn’t known it before, he knew it now: Muriel was a miracle worker. Who else could get Sherlock to agree with his brother _and_ bequeath him a title of sentiment in a single breath? 

“I dunno what he did with my bag… so I’ve lost my umbrella,” Muriel said to Mycroft. 

John had completely forgotten about her bag, but he assumed it didn’t really matter much – and not just because, in the grand scheme of things, she was safe and who cared about the rest of it – but because she would be theirs, properly, officially, and if Mycroft didn’t keep her supplied with absolutely everything she could want – well, there was no point in the ‘if.’ Mycroft _would_. 

“Not a problem,” Mycroft said, confirming John’s thoughts. “Umbrellas are easily replaced. Nieces, less so.” 

Muriel looked at John. He nodded at her. 

She was theirs and Mycroft would replace all umbrellas for her until the end of time.

“I can’t believe you didn’t _say_ anything,” Donovan complained. “You went and _adopted a child_ and didn’t tell anyone, who does that?” 

_We do_ , John thought. 

They didn’t do anything like other people did things; why would this be any different? 

“When did you adopt her, anyway?” Donovan asked. 

“Recently,” replied Sherlock. 

Muriel grinned. 

“Recently,” Donovan said, then – “ _Oh_. She’s your Tuesday-Friday, isn’t she?” 

“Yes,” said Sherlock. 

John was slightly appalled it had taken him as long as it did to recognize the pattern, but, to be fair, they couldn’t all be geniuses. 

“You could have said something,” Donovan said. “You could have said, ‘Sally, I’d love to fill out paperwork, but I’ve a meeting with a social worker about my daughter and need to dash.’ You could have said, ‘Normally I stick around for the arrests, but it’s midday on Friday and my daughter is expecting me.’” 

John wished that their reality had matched with Donovan’s imagined version of it. 

“I… didn’t expect you to understand,” Sherlock said. 

Donovan glanced at Muriel. “Your father’s a bit of an idiot.” 

“Isn’t everyone?” Muriel said. “Besides, he’s brilliant most of the time, so I think he gets a pass on this.” 

“No,” Sherlock whispered to her. “Not on this.” 

John would hold him to it. 

Neither John – who was supposed to be the one who was good with people – nor Sherlock deserved a pass on this. 

Greg returned, standing close to Mycroft but not touching him, which John understood, even though the case was mostly over and, for God’s sake, it was all fine. 

Donovan turned to Greg. “Did you know that Sherlock and John adopted a kid?” 

Greg looked to Muriel; John thought of their aborted conversation in Sherlock’s hospital room. 

“I had some idea,” the D.I. said, which was so close in tone to Sherlock’s ‘Recently’ that John decided that everyone who spent long enough with Sherlock ended up speaking a mad, separate language. 

“We’ve got another genius in the family now,” said John. “I’m outnumbered and deliriously happy about it.”

From Muriel’s dubious expression, he could tell she would need more reassurance than that. 

“You’re not also secretly married, are you?” Donovan interjected. 

“What? No,” said John. 

It wasn’t that he hadn’t thought about it, but he already knew that he and Sherlock were committed to their partnership for the rest of their lives, and he assumed that Sherlock couldn’t be bothered with the institution and if Sherlock didn’t want it, John didn’t need it. 

“What could possibly lead you to conclude that?” wondered Sherlock. 

“You’ve done it backwards, you know,” Donovan explained, but she was smiling her bemused, ‘aren’t you two a mad, precious mess’ smile. “You realize that most people go about it in a different order.”

“Sherlock and John aren’t most people,” Muriel said. “They’re better.” 

John thought Muriel deserved about a thousand cups of tea, because that was one of the nicest things anyone had ever said about him, ever, and he wished he had a Mind Palace like Sherlock so he could preserve the compliment forever. He hoped Sherlock was saving it for them.

He also wished he knew what Muriel would consider a proper reward, besides tea. 

Books? 

A really old book?

A really new book? 

“What order?” Sherlock asked. 

“Normally, when people plan on having children together – and adoption definitely counts, I’m actually impressed you had the patience to go through the process – they get married first,” said Donovan. 

John supposed that, all things considered, they had been patient, and since Sherlock was almost never patient, he ought to be rewarded, too. 

“Oh,” said Sherlock.

John wondered if they could now return to the more immediate business of ushering Muriel home, so she could sleep in John’s old bedroom and John could make her a proper fry-up when she awoke. 

Sherlock let go of Muriel and turned to him. His brow was furrowed in concentration and there was an odd shyness in his eyes that John wasn’t used to seeing, not anymore, but Sherlock met his gaze steadily and said – “John?” 

Suddenly, his brain was working much, much faster than usual and he wondered if this was what it was like for Sherlock, all the time, and he saw the conversation with Donovan and heard Sherlock’s soft ‘Oh’ and _yes_ , it would always be yes with Sherlock. 

“Oh, God, yes,” John replied, pulling Sherlock toward him snogging his mad, brilliant partner – fiancé, Christ, that was perfect – for about one trillionth of the time he desired but twice as long as he figured was really appropriate for the circumstances. 

“Did they just get engaged at a crime scene?” asked Donovan. She sounded positively scandalized and John wanted to save that, too, because somehow when he was with Sherlock, what other people found scandalous, he found amazing. 

“Brilliant, isn’t it?” Muriel replied, grinning. 

“I quite agree with Muriel,” Sherlock said. 

John quite agreed with the both of them. 

“Mummy will be so pleased,” Mycroft said.

Sherlock rolled his eyes, but John, who liked Sherlock’s parents, was glad that Mycroft believed they would welcome the match. 

The marriage, that was.

They had already been a match. 

“Knowing the two of you, I suppose it wouldn’t have happened anywhere else,” Donovan sighed. 

“Quite right,” said Sherlock. “Muriel, you’ll be in the wedding party, of course?” 

They were going to have a _wedding_. 

Not just a marriage, but a _wedding_ , which Sherlock would probably arrange, because – oh, God – Sherlock was brilliant at wedding planning, only this one would be so, so much better because it would be _theirs_ , and wasn’t that what they had wanted all along? 

“I – oh,” said Muriel, who was now looking more confused than delighted. “Yes?” 

“Excellent,” said John, standing and helping Muriel up. 

“We’re done here,” Sherlock decided. “We’re taking Muriel home.” 

Mycroft, naturally, had a car waiting to take the three of them back to Baker Street. 

Muriel leaned against Sherlock, closing her eyes, and John thought he had never seen anything so perfect, even though he knew he thought that about a hundred times a day with Sherlock – but with Sherlock, it wasn’t just all fine, it was all brilliant and spectacular and amazing and if perfection seemed to continually arrive in new and unexpected forms, John wasn’t going to question it. 

“Muriel,” Sherlock began. “Say yes.” 

John, so content, so relaxed an instant before, felt his heart speed up in alarm. 

She had to say yes. She had to, because they knew her and she knew them and she was perfect – 

Muriel looked at Sherlock, then at John. 

“We have already,” John said. “Weeks ago.” 

“The thought of you continuing to be unsafe, of you failing to be surrounded by people who _know_ you and would do anything for you – is no longer acceptable,” Sherlock said. 

John swallowed. 

“And if it’s not with us, then we will read a file on every family in England until we find one you want,” he said. 

He would hate it, of course, but he would, because she needed to be safe and she needed to be more than safe – she needed to be happy, and even though John was of the opinion that Sherlock was fairly brilliant at making people happy when he cared to, John wasn’t going to take the choice away from Muriel. 

“When I told you that you were right, that no one would want someone has brilliant as you if you didn’t belong to them biologically – I only said that because I didn’t think you would want me to say that _I_ would,” Sherlock said. “That we would. I wanted to continue to have an excuse to see you, to worry about you, and I knew you wouldn’t permit that if you thought I was pushing for something else. I am never going to grow bored with have you around, and John will be all the happier for having twice as much brilliance in his life.” 

John thought Sherlock was becoming rather good at speaking in sentiment. He was now infinitely more comprehensible than ‘I’m married to my Work,’ anyway. 

“Please,” added John, then said, “Sherlock has been composing mournful, angry violin pieces for weeks and I can’t bear it any longer.” 

Not because the music wasn’t beautiful, but it was heartbreakingly so, positively aching with longing and frustration and it was really, really too much to bear. 

“You compose?” Muriel asked Sherlock. 

“Yes. Rarely, but yes. I’ll write something for you if you stay,” Sherlock said. “And while we’re on the subject, John has been extremely displeased with me for ages, so really, to ensure our domestic stability, you must say yes.” 

John squeezed Sherlock’s hand. 

He had been displeased with Sherlock… but he had been much more displeased with the stupid, stupid world that made Sherlock’s decisions the least problematic course of action. 

“Mrs. Hudson will love you,” John said, and not just because Muriel’s arrival would mean the end of Sherlock’s ‘unhappy style.’ 

“Our housekeeper, although she pretends she is merely our landlady,” Sherlock explained. “She’ll bring you tea and biscuits whenever you like and often even when you don’t.” 

John was grateful that the pair hadn’t crossed paths either of the times Muriel had been to the flat; Mrs. Hudson would have called her their daughter, just as she had assumed John was Sherlock’s boyfriend, and it probably wouldn’t have gone over well. 

Now, however, if Muriel agreed… 

“What does Mycroft think?” Muriel asked. 

“Mycroft thinks we are all idiots,” Sherlock said crisply. “For waiting until now, that is. He finds you vastly interesting and would take you himself if we didn’t have the prior claim – and if he weren’t so incredibly unfit for parenthood.” 

John suppressed a smile. 

“He made me eggs,” Muriel said, her tone sly and teasing. 

Sherlock, evidently not appreciating the comment, threw John a dark look and said, “It is your job to exceed Mycroft in all areas of domesticity.” 

John, who was still inclined to feel grateful to Mycroft for his assistance on the night/morning in question, just raised his eyebrows. 

“Mycroft prefers swooping in unexpectedly, anyway,” Muriel said wisely. 

“I am aware,” Sherlock replied. 

After the car dropped them out, they lingered on the steps as John fumbled through his pockets for his keys. 

He did have them, didn’t he? He’d grabbed them when they’d left the flat… he’d definitely had them when they’d left… 

“It doesn’t matter,” Sherlock said. 

John thought Sherlock was talking about the keys – as if Sherlock carried around keys, but then again, he didn’t need to, not when he had lock picks – but Sherlock was looking at Muriel and continued, “If anyone is at fault for our last conversation, it is I.” 

Well, their last conversation did matter, but perhaps not for the reasons Muriel thought. 

Ah. 

Keys. 

John thrust the key into the lock – and stumbled back when Mrs. Hudson opened the door from the inside.

He really should stop carrying them around. Far more bother than they were worth. 

“Boys!” she said, greeting them in the would-be-scolding tone with which John was so familiar. “Mycroft has had _people_ going through your flat, rearranging furniture, by the sound of it. Woke me up in the middle of the night, it did.” 

_Good old Mycroft_ , John thought. 

Also, John realized with a jolt, his future brother-in-law. 

Christ. He wondered if he would have to sign any paperwork besides the marriage license. 

“Apologies, Mrs. Hudson,” Sherlock said, clearing his throat. 

Mrs. Hudson looked at Muriel. 

“Hullo, dear,” she said. “Between the two of us, it looks as if you’ve had the worse night.” 

Muriel did, indeed, look as if she’d had the worse night, and John wondered if they could possibly have the conversation inside, where everyone could have a cup of tea and finally get some sleep. 

Muriel smiled. “It’s very nice to meet you, Mrs. Hudson, and I’m afraid the furniture moving was likely my fault. I’m Muriel.” 

John waited. 

He’d learned to let other people explain relationships. 

Muriel met Sherlock’s gaze; Sherlock’s eyes lit up and John grinned, let it stretch over his whole face, because he _knew_ – 

Muriel turned back to Mrs. Hudson. “I’m their daughter.” 

It was, John thought, kind of a brilliant life. 

 

John made tea.

Sherlock played the violin – happily, for the first time in weeks. 

Muriel picked out a new umbrella from the set Mycroft sent over for her perusal. 

 

On Saturday morning, John made tea and toast – he was quickly becoming accustomed to arranging food and drink for three, although Muriel was much more inclined to help than Sherlock in that department – and, aside from the body parts in the fridge and the skull on the mantle, it was almost ordinary. 

Muriel looked at Sherlock expectantly. “Who am I following around today?” 

Very, very carefully, John set his teacup on the table. 

“No one,” he and Sherlock said together. 

Muriel frowned. “I didn’t say _what serial killer_ am I following around today.” 

As if that was going to change John’s answer. 

“Same answer,” Sherlock replied, and John was the tiniest bit relieved that he and Sherlock were on the same page about this. 

“Muriel,” John began, mirroring her frown. “You know we _adopted_ you. You’re not here to be a live-in member of the Network for our convenience.” 

“But you don’t want me watching at all?” Muriel asked. 

“No,” they both said. 

Muriel, apparently believing that John was a lost cause, focused on Sherlock. “But I’m useful.” 

“Your purpose isn’t to be useful to Scotland Yard,” Sherlock replied. “Your purpose is to eat Mrs. Hudson’s biscuits and watch Doctor Who with John while I run experiments on thumbs.” 

_Yes, exactly_ , John thought. 

“I thought you had index fingers in the fridge,” Muriel said. 

Sherlock waved a hand. “I was attempting to speak generally. Apologies.” 

“Can I at least help you on your cases? Not the surveillance, but the other parts?” Muriel asked. 

Sherlock looked at John, silently asking for permission. 

“Secured crime scenes, Scotland Yard, and St. Bart’s only. Absolutely no stake-outs,” John said, lacing his voice with enough iron to let the both of them know there would be no negotiation. “And you’ll stay here – or with Mycroft, I guess, we’ll have to talk to him about this – if we’re going to be out all night.” 

This was probably why adoption was set up to take so long: there were details to be arranged, bits of life that had to be reordered… 

Muriel rolled her eyes. “I’ve been out all night before.” 

“Yes,” said John. “No more.” 

“We won’t have to talk to Mycroft,” Sherlock added. “He’ll send a car to Muriel and a smug text to me.” 

Muriel grinned. 

John decided that, with Mycroft’s involvement, perhaps matters would simply rearrange themselves. 

“We’ve really made it too easy on him, you know,” Muriel said, sipping her tea. “You two, Greg, me, all in the same place when there’s a case – masterful consolidation on his part.” 

John snorted. 

_That_ was the Mycroft he knew. 

“No more CCTV game,” Sherlock said to Muriel, uncharacteristically passing over the opportunity to make a dig at his brother. “Not even now that you’re here.” 

“I know,” Muriel said. “It was fun though.” 

Sherlock waited, his fingertips tented together. 

“Yes,” Muriel sighed. “No more. I know. You’re going to know where I am all the time and it’s going to be very boring.” 

John chuckled. “Oh, I doubt that very much,” he said, glancing at Sherlock. “We’re all mad here, you know.” 

Muriel leaned back her chair. “I know,” she agreed. 

 

Sherlock and Greg were interrogating the suspect as John, Muriel, and Donovan watched from the observation room. 

It was a bit like having front-row seats to the best theatre in the country, and there was a new play at least once a week. 

“I almost feel bad for the poor sod,” Donovan remarked. 

“For the suspect?” John asked. 

“He really doesn’t stand a chance,” Donovan said. “I’m going to make the D.I. babysit you two one of these days… I’m sure it’s even better on the inside.” 

John made a conscious effort to keep staring through the one-way window. 

“You’d have to be in the same room as Sherlock, you know,” John said. 

Out of the corner of his eye, he saw the sergeant shrug. 

“This one’s a complete bastard – did you hear him call Sergeant Jones a bitch when she went to cuff him? – so I actually don’t feel sorry for him at all. Maybe I should thank your fiancé when he’s through with him,” said Donovan, a small smile tugging at the corners of her lips, as if she knew exactly what effect she was having on John and enjoyed the feeling. 

“Thank… Sherlock?” John spluttered. 

“He’d like that,” Muriel interjected, though she, like Donovan, continued to peer fixedly through the glass. 

“You’re the one he should really let in, though,” Donovan continued, addressing Muriel. “Seeing as you won’t be around much in, what, a week, when the new term starts?” 

Muriel scowled. “Yes, a week.” 

“You wouldn’t believe the letters the school has been sending us,” John said, rolling his eyes. “Mycroft ‘arranged’ a place in this absurdly posh public school and even the stationary is almost too much to handle.” 

“But it’s the best, and Sherlock wouldn’t settle for anything less,” Donovan finished for him. 

“Obviously,” said Muriel, mimicking Sherlock’s tone perfectly.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This was the hardest chapter for me to write, so if you've made it all the way until the end, thank you! 
> 
> alecstar had the lovely idea of an epilogue from Mrs. Hudson's perspective, but I'm really quite busy at the moment and unfortunately can't afford to let myself think about epilogues even though I'd LOVE to (*respectful pause for Wild and Precious readers to glare at me, though this is essentially their AU, so even if I haven't given them Part III, they've received part of what they were promised*). In short: I wanted to acknowledge the idea, even if I never get around to writing it... and without further ado, I release all claims on your reading attention.


End file.
